


All Things Nice

by starcrossed_writing



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: F/M, also you know how it goes im not telling you the pairing yet, because where's the fun in that?, girl dressing as boy, yes it's the mulan trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 52
Words: 117,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcrossed_writing/pseuds/starcrossed_writing
Summary: "What are little girls made of?"Cutting off all of her hair, faking a medical examination, and signing up for the paratroopers aren't feats that were necessarily easy to achieve. They also weren't done out of a desire to prove oneself, or to demonstrate that women could do more than keep the home fires burning, or even an ambition to experience combat. They were done out of desperation.On the wrong side of the pond and desperate to get home, as soon as Posey discovers that the fastest way back to Europe is via troopship her decision is made. Now all she has to do is make it through basic training. That, and make sure no one finds out.She supposes she'll find out what little girls are really made of in the process. 'All things nice' just doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore.
Relationships: Canon Character / Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 220
Kudos: 108





	1. Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> PART ONE: Exodus
> 
> "It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe."  
> \- Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Taking care to stare past her faint reflection in the glass, Posey focused her eyes on the lone tree in the back garden as she made her first, determined snip. She knew she'd never be able to go through with it if she could see what a mess she was making in a mirror. With eyes darting between the tree and her reflection, she grabbed another handful of hair and cut it off as close to her head as she could manage. 

She watched bronzed leaves float down from the branches and imagined it was them that brushed her back upon their descent and not her own pale locks. Her mother had always told her that her hair was her best feature. She wondered what her mother would say if she saw it in a growing pool at her feet. 

Posey dared not look down. One glance down at the amount of hair she was standing in and she couldn't promise that she wouldn't start to cry. These were desperate times and desperate times called for desperate measures. After all, there were plenty of people in the world making far heftier sacrifices than their hair - her brother, to name only one, who had lost so many friends in the Battle of Britain he could no longer bear to look anyone in the face. He saw them everywhere, her mother had written in her letter. In turn, Posey saw him everywhere, too. 

Even in the early evening the sky was beginning to taint black. The year was growing old and the sun weary, retiring earlier and earlier everyday. Posey could understand the sentiment; if she were looking down on the world right now she thought she couldn't much bear to look at it either. She wondered how everything had become so terribly undone. Europe's lights had all gone out, the place she called home forced into darkness. 

If this was what it took to get back, she reminded herself, she could stand to lose some of her hair. 

A knock at the door startled Posey, blood beginning to bead on her ear where she'd nicked it with the scissors. She swore under her breath. 

"Josephine, dear?" called the woman on the other side. 

Posey watched her reflection scowl. She hated her Christian name. She wasn't a Josephine, she was a Posey. She had always been a Posey. Mrs. Daniels, however, hadn't much cared what she was called back in England, under her roof she was Josephine and that was that. 

Then, in spite of herself, Posey grinned. She wondered how Mrs. Daniels would take it knowing that she was now a Joseph instead. 

"Yes?" she called back, her smile playing on the edges of her voice. She could only imagine the scene the elderly woman would cause as soon as she pushed into the room. 

When the door opened it slammed closed again almost immediately. "Good heavens!" came the cry from the other side. 

Posey grinned. 

"Mrs. Daniels?" she asked, continuing to snip away at her hair. "Are you quite alright?"

She watched the door reopen tentatively in the reflection and took care to wipe the smirk off of her face. After all, other than insisting on using her Christian name, Mrs. Daniels had been a most agreeable host. 

There was no movement behind her, and no noise either. Posey cut off the final long strands of hair in silence and nodded to herself in triumph before turning to face the door. 

"What do you think?" she asked, striking a pose and trying desperately not to laugh. 

Mrs. Daniels was aghast. "What on earth have you done to yourself, Josephine? Dear me, just _what_ are you doing?"

Posey met the woman's gaze with a pleasant smile. "There's a war on, Mrs. Daniels."

The elderly woman nodded. "Yes, I think I may have read something about that somewhere."

Posey laughed. "Right. I'm glad you're familiar." Then she shook her head. She had to clench her hands into fists to stop herself from touching her hair - hair that no longer brushed her shoulders when she moved. "I'm going to fight."

Much to her surprise, Mrs. Daniels laughed. "And you couldn't have joined one of the many women's branches? You couldn't have been a nurse?"

Posey sighed and sat on her bed, stroking at the sheets to give herself something to focus on. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Of course, my dear."

"I'm not really going to fight. I just want to go home."

"And you thought joining the army was the way to do it?"

It sounded so silly when she said it like that but the damage had already been done - all of her blonde hair lay strewn across the floor by the window as proof of that. And she had already made up her mind, and whilst Posey did a lot of things with reckless abandon, going back on her decisions was not one of them. 

She tugged at the white sheets, watching as the embroidered pink roses puckered up as though reaching for the dying light from the window. She sighed once more. "The army will get me back to England as soon as I finish training," she said, voice only just above a whisper. "There won't be any needing to wait until the war is over, it'll be as soon as possible because they want to get their troops overseas." She shook her head, reminding herself of all of the reasons why she had decided to do this. "There's no promise that a nurse will be sent abroad because there are so many rehabilitation hospitals, and I can't wait for the end of the war because my family might not have that long. The lifespan of an RAF pilot these days is terribly short and my mother is in London, of all places, and God knows the Germans do so seem to love bombing London." The sheets were clenched tightly in her fists, peeking out to observe the conversation through the gaps between her fingers. "I need to get home now."

When she risked a glance up at Mrs. Daniels, the woman was nodding. "Okay, my dear."

Posey's eyebrows hopped up. "'Okay'?" she repeated. "That's all you're going to say?"

Mrs. Daniels laughed. "Well, that and the fact that you've missed a spot at the back." She walked over to the bed and sat down beside her. She gently pried the scissors from her hand and began to comb her fingers through the short strands of hair before cleaning up the haphazard job Posey had done with her lack of a mirror. 

"You'll never get through the medical examination, Josephine," Mrs. Daniels said, but there was nothing malicious or taunting in her voice. She seemed to be smiling, perhaps anticipating that Posey had already devised a way around that. 

Posey shrugged one shoulder, trying not to disturb the scissors currently at work in her hair. "I've got a plan for that."


	2. Forgery

Approaching the recruitment office, Posey wasn't surprised to see how many young men were both entering and leaving. Something bitter whirled around in her stomach; she envied them how easy it would be to make it into the army and through basic training. She was having to pull an incredibly intricate, and incredibly illegal, stunt to even get herself registered. A stunt, as well, that banked heavily on a tidal wave of luck that she knew she didn't ordinarily possess. 

All she could do was keep her fingers crossed. 

She pushed through the double doors and kept her chin up, hoping to feign a few extra inches of height. She wasn't short - not for a woman, anyway - but she would by no means be considered tall. 'Tall for a woman' would have to do, so long as it meant she could pass as 'short for a man'. 

A man with a particularly small queue sat behind a desk on the far left of the small admin office, seeming to be pleading with the man at the front of his line. He had his eyebrows furrowed, his hands outstretched, and his lips moved rapidly with words Posey couldn't hear. She joined his queue; if anyone was going to let her through with very few questions it looked like it was going to be him. 

Whilst she waited in line, Posey took care to scan the room and watch the protocol carefully. She attempted to appear disinterested as she kept her eyes trained on a conversation taking place at the next desk over between the recruitment officer and the man at the front of the line. The only questions she was able to lipread were name, age, and which branch of the military he wanted to sign up for before her attention was drawn away to the man in front of her being called forwards. 

As she stared at the back of the man's dark head of hair she ran over the answers to each of the questions in her head. Name, age, which branch of the military. The first two were simple enough, and she had the fake ID to show for it, but why hadn't she thought to decide which branch of the military she wanted to join? It was such a colossal detail - the absolute _last_ thing she needed was to be part of a company that was sent to the Pacific. She was British - the war in the Pacific wasn't even her war! Not, of course, that she had any intentions of actually fighting in any wars. She just needed to be part of a combat unit that would be sent to England before they were sent to the frontlines. She needed to be bound for the war in Europe. 

"Next!" called the recruitment officer. 

Posey jolted in place as she watched the man who had once stood before her slip through a door behind the desk. Still, she forced a toothless smile onto her face, thinning out her lips in a bid to appear more masculine, and lifted her chin. _Think tall, think brusque, think aggressive,_ she repeated to herself as a mantra. These were all the traits she could think of to associate with masculinity. 

"Name?" the man asked, not bothering to look up. His nametag read 'Jennings' and, by the looks of all of the colours lined up on his chest, he'd experienced a whole lot of combat. She'd seen similar on her father's old military uniforms before he'd packed them up and taken them with him, his life's pride and joy. She hoped she'd never have the same sewn into whatever jacket the military ended up giving her. 

"Um, Joseph, sir." She cursed herself for the hesitation and also the wobbliness of the accent. Mrs. Daniels had coached her for at least an hour the previous evening on how to execute the perfect Boston accent, but with her nerves it had emerged as half-American and half-British. She forced a cough to cover it and tried again. "Joseph Wells." At least she'd get to keep her last name. And then, with any luck, she'd get to England and be Posey again. She hadn't been Posey since she'd left. 

Jennings nodded and repeated the name under his breath as he jotted it down. When he was done he looked up at her for the first time. His thick black eyebrows crashed down over his hooded eyes but he didn't comment on her unconventional appearance; short hair and baggy men's clothes could do a lot, but she knew she still had the full lips and rosy cheeks of a young woman. Instead, all he said was, "Age?" There was a wariness to his tone. 

Posey took care to deepen her voice. "Eighteen, sir."

"I'm gonna need to see some ID." 

She nodded. She'd expected as much. 

Jennings scrutinised her ID for an excruciating amount of time. Posey felt certain she'd held her breath for the entire duration. At last, he gave a resigned sigh, nodded, and handed it back to her.

"Address?" 

She recited to him Mrs. Daniels' address and contact details. 

"Which branch of the military are you registering for?"

"Which one will take me to Europe?"

The man grinned. Posey thought she may have struck gold with that simple question from the way his eyes lit up. 

"Wanting to fight some Nazis, then, are we?"

Posey nodded sharply, determination fizzling in her eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Then you'll want the Airborne."

A series of scoffs and sputters stuttered out of her mouth. "The Airborne?" she repeated. Her entire face was scrunched up in the aftereffects of her confusion. 

Jennings nodded. He seemed overwhelmed with excitement and mirth. "Paratroopers. You'll parachute into enemy territory and then fight on the ground." Perhaps sensing her reluctance to agree, he laid down his ace, "You'll get paid an extra fifty dollars a month." 

Posey considered his words carefully. She didn't care about the money but she cared about getting home. In all honesty, it sounded like a death wish, but all she had to do was get through training. Surely she could jump out of a few aeroplanes and blag her way through basic, and if that meant she would get to go home then surely it would be worth it. It wasn't like she would actually have to _be_ a paratrooper. She just had to convince them that she could be. 

"And I'll be sent to Europe?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and sizing the man up. "You're certain?" There was an audible prudence in her tone. 

"You bet," replied Jennings.

Posey wasn't sure whether he was just saying so to get her to agree or whether it was actually true, but it was her best bet. And if they decided to send her to the Pacific she'd just tell them she was a girl and they'd send her right back to Mrs. Daniels. Maybe. Hopefully. 

"Alright, then," Posey agreed with a nod, forcing an air of confident determination into her persona. "The Airborne it is."

Jennings stamped her form and handed it over to her on a clipboard. "Congratulations! You're the first son of a bitch to agree to it today." He laughed. "Too late to go back now. Good luck, son!" 

Posey took the clipboard from him and headed through the same door she'd watched the man before her head through, grimacing as she heard Jennings call out to the next man. Suddenly all of her confidence in the assurance that the Airborne would be sent to Europe had dissipated. There was now no doubt in her mind that Jennings actually had no idea where they'd be sent, he'd just wanted to get her to sign up for this new branch of the military which may as well have been suicide. 

_Well,_ she thought, _there's nothing for it now._ She just had to hold onto the hope that maybe she'd be sent to Europe anyway. 

The back room she found herself in was oddly subdued. Some men stood about in various states of undress on one side, rubbing their behinds and complaining of their pain. On the other side were lined up some bright blue chairs, antsy-looking young men seated on some of them and bouncing their legs as they awaited what could only be their medical examinations. When one of them was called in and another emerged, entirely naked and using his clipboard to retain some semblance of dignity, Posey knew she was right. 

"Bollocks," she muttered under her breath. She hadn't anticipated that the medical would be this soon. She watched as one wiry, ginger man who couldn't have been much older than she was staggered his way across the room to one of the plastic chairs. 

By the time she'd approached him, his eyes were all but shut. 

"What happened to you?" she asked in her newfound Boston accent. 

The man shook his head, and then groaned with what was likely the resulting motion sickness. "Shots," he said in a low slur. He gestured vaguely in the direction of the opposite side of the room. When Posey turned she watched a man emerge from a door, still working to rebutton his trousers. Injections, she deduced.

Turning back to the ginger recruit, she found his eyes shut and his mouth hanging open. Either asleep or fallen unconscious, Posey didn't care, for he couldn't see what she was doing and that was all that mattered. She spared a glance up at the rest of the room's occupants to check for any prying eyes and, assured she was going unobserved, she plucked the clipboard from the man's hands. She used the pencil attached to her own clipboard to copy out what was written on his form in the exact handwriting it'd been written in, noting down everything that was being measured and recorded in the back room which required one to be entirely undressed. She copied out his dental information and prayed it wouldn't be too important during training, as well as all of the information on his heart rate and blood pressure. She then filled out her own predetermined measurements, taken graciously by Mrs. Daniels the previous evening, as well as the details of her appearance - hazel eyes, blonde hair, pale skin - and her place of birth - Boston, Massachusetts, which was, of course, a corker of a lie. 

She finished her grand scheme by signing the date and forging the nurse's signature before handing the unconscious ginger beside her back his chart. She nodded to herself and then got up to join the queue on the opposite side of the room for injections. When she got to the front, the soldier took one look at her filled-out form and ushered her in. 

The nurse that greeted her in the small room on the other side of the door gave a surprised quirk of the eyebrows the moment she laid eyes on Posey. In turn, Posey forced her shoulders back and her back up straight. "Where do you want me, ma'am?" she asked in the deepest voice she could muster. She internally grimaced as soon as she'd finished speaking - she'd gone too far and spoken so comically low that even the nurse was grinning. This whole act was going to take some getting used to, apparently. 

"Over here, please, _sir_ ," the nurse replied, stifling her smile. 

Posey shuffled over to where she'd been directed, knowing she'd been found out; she could fool men all day long but the moment a woman laid eyes on her she was done for. 

"First shot is in the arm," the nurse said in her lilting voice, ushering Posey into a chair. As she busied herself with readying her equipment, she shot a glance over at her patient and observed, "You don't much look like a man."

She was definitely done for but something about the woman's cheeky smile made Posey inclined to believe her secret was safe. "Cucullus non facit monachum," she said. When the nurse looked up at her with furrowed brows, she grinned. "The hood makes not the monk." Let her take from that what she will. 

The nurse merely nodded, smiling to herself, before pulling up Posey's sleeve and wiping over the skin of her bicep. "This'll hurt a bit."

It did hurt a bit but it was over quickly. Perhaps to distract her, the nurse asked, "What brings you to the military?"

"I want to fight," Posey answered without hesitation. It wasn't true but even if the nurse knew she was a girl, she couldn't go around giving away all her secrets. 

The nurse nodded, wiping down her other arm. "My brother's in the service. I enlisted as a nurse because I wanted to help but I've always wondered what it might be like to be a soldier."

Posey didn't say anything, instead choosing to shut her eyes as the second needle went in.

When she opened them again, the nurse was smiling at her apologetically. "The final shot goes in the - uh - behind. Sorry."

Posey flushed even though she'd been expecting as much, having caught many of the men emerging from the room still rebuttoning their trousers. She nodded and avoided eye contact as she stood and turned to face the desk littered with equipment.

The final injection was over with a few hushed apologies and a very quick stab of a needle. She turned back to the nurse knowing her cheeks were still flushed but offered a kind smile anyway.

The nurse laughed a bit to herself. "You're the first person who hasn't flirted with me whilst I've done that today, so thank you."

Posey laughed but flushed harder, so the woman readied the final bit of equipment. "All that's left is your fingerprint and then I can stamp you. Ready?" 

With a nod and a final smile her fingerprint was taken and transferred onto various sheets of paper. Her form was stamped and just like that, she was a solider. 

The nurse gave her a warm smile. "Just head back out and hand your form over to the soldier at the desk by the medical station and you'll be good to go. They'll send you the information on your training through the mail."

Posey grinned. "Thank you so much," she said, laughing all the while. She was a bit delirious with the shock of her success, and entirely overjoyed.

"Good luck," replied the nurse as she ushered her out of the door.


	3. Teddy

Posey clutched tightly at the strap of her bag. The military, apparently, didn't permit soldiers to take very many belongings with them. This, of course, was understandable, but since Posey wouldn't be returning after the war this meant the items she had packed were items she had decided she couldn't live without. They were few in number but rich in their value to her. But what was really of value to her was back in London, she reminded herself, so materialistic things didn't really matter. 

Mrs. Daniels stood worrying beside her, muttering to herself a repeated list of everything she thought she'd need. "Undergarments and feminine towel and gloves and -"

"I thought Georgia was supposed to be hot," Posey protested with a small laugh. Really, though, she was riddled with nerves, and Mrs. Daniels' muttering helped to settle something inside of her. 

"You won't always be in Georgia, my dear," the elderly woman replied. She shot Posey a smile and then repeated her list. 

When her train was called, Posey jumped in place. She would be getting on it in mere minutes and heading towards basic training. None of it felt real, but then again it hadn't felt real when she'd crossed the Atlantic to America, either. 

Mrs. Daniels was frantic now. "Josephine, dear, do look after yourself, alright?"

"I will, Mrs. Daniels, I promise."

"Also, I packed Teddy at the bottom of your bag."

"What -?!"

"I couldn't bear for you to leave him behind!" she exclaimed louder than she'd intended. "He looked so lonely sitting there on your bed that I just couldn't let you leave him there." Mrs. Daniels sighed and shook her head. "And I thought you might need him. You'll be very lonely over there, and no matter how much you try, you'll never quite fit in. I hope I'm wrong, but I think there'll come a time when you're grateful that I made you take him with you."

Despite the fact that she now had yet another secret to hide from the men she'd be training with, Posey smiled. At least now she knew she'd have one friend in boot camp, even if he was only her raggedy old childhood teddy bear. 

"Thank you. Really." Posey felt her eyes welling up but forced the emotion down. "That was really thoughtful of you."

Mrs. Daniels brushed her away. "I also got you something. Don't open it until you're on the train but it's just something to read while you're there in case you're ever unoccupied." Posey couldn't imagine that she ever would be but she smiled nonetheless. "I've written my address on the title page. I know you know it already but I just wanted for you to remember me every now and again." 

She sniffled and Posey felt those tears clawing their way back again. "I will," she promised. "Of course I will."

"And you're always welcome to come back," the elderly woman added. "You'll always have a bed and a bedroom with me."

Posey smiled. "I know. Thank you."

Mrs. Daniels wiped away her tears and took ahold of both of Posey's hands just as the train pulled in. "I know you haven't much enjoyed your time in America but I'd really like it if you should write to me every once in a while. Just let me know how you're getting on and when you get to England, things like that. I know I'm not your mother or even a relation but -" She broke off, wiping at her wet cheeks again. "But I've always thought of you like you were my own. So do let me know that you're safe."

Posey shook her head and threw her arms around the woman who had taken her in as an evacuee and let her go as a daughter. "I'll write to you," she promised, voice muffled by Mrs. Daniels' shoulder. "More often than you'd like, probably, but of course I'll write." She pulled back so that the woman could see the sincerity in her next words. "I know I haven't been terribly grateful for all you've done for me but I really and truly am. For taking me in and treating me so kindly and for helping me with all of this." The both of them laughed at this. "Just, thank you for everything."

The train whistle blew and Posey knew this was it, so she pulled the woman into a final hug and forced herself not to cry. "Look after yourself, Mrs. Daniels, okay?"

"I'm going to miss you very much."

Posey just about felt her heart melt. No one had ever said that to her before. 

She smiled and wiped furiously at the tear that had fallen unbidden. "I'm going to miss you, too. Desperately."

She felt the woman nod and with that she pulled away. "Bye," she said, her eyes full of tears and her smile full of sadness.

Mrs. Daniels sniffled and nodded. "Goodbye, my dear."

Posey gave her one last smile before turning and boarding the train. When she was seated she tried to force herself not to look back out of the window but of course she couldn't. When she did, the platform was full of families and girlfriends and wives and children; mothers crying and fathers holding onto them, girlfriends waving with tears in their eyes, and children running around entirely unaware of what was happening. And in the midst of them all stood Mrs. Daniels, who waved at her, though it looked as though she'd already been waving, even when Posey hadn't been looking. She smiled and waved back just as the train pulled away. 

It took her around fifteen minutes before she worked up the courage to open her bag and search for the gift Mrs. Daniels had given her. She found it tucked between folded gloves which she was sure she wouldn't need but which the elderly woman had forced her to take anyway. 

Posey pulled out the book and laughed at the cover. 

_Twelfth Night_ by William Shakespeare. 

She was going to miss that woman sorely. 

And just as she'd said, Mrs. Daniels had written her address on the inside cover as well as a quick note. 'In case you find yourself seeking inspiration', she had written. Posey couldn't prevent her laugh from bubbling out. "'I am not that I play', indeed," she whispered.

She spent the majority of the next few hours between looking out of the window at the passing American countryside and twiddling her thumbs. And, after a period of time, she spent it sleeping, revelling in the fact that this was something she could do now that people thought she was a boy - no flirtatious young men or overly confident older ones were trying to bother her now, and she didn't have to fear what might happen if she fell asleep on public transportation. This was an unforeseen benefit of her newfound masculine persona and she would be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying it. 

The hours passed laboriously slowly and with numerous trips to the bathroom. Whilst she'd already thought and worried about how she'd get around the bathroom situation in training, what she hadn't considered was the fact that she'd inevitably need to go a lot more frequently than everyone else. And then she worried about showering, for surely she wouldn't be the only one to ever shower in the early hours of the morning. And then she worried about changing clothes in the barracks. And having to sleep in a room full of men. And on, and on, and on. 

Eventually, she tired herself out by worrying so much, but when she woke those worries were still a plague that tormented her. She wondered whether all of this would even be possible or whether she'd cut all of her hair off and broken the law simply to be sent back to Boston on the first day of training. 

With a sigh, Posey picked up the book and began to read, for she found herself seeking inspiration much sooner than she'd anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! to any of my previous readers: welcome back! and to any new ones: welcome! this was my project for nanowrimo this year and i've decided to begin posting it. i had a lot of fun writing it so i hope it'll be just as enjoyable to read!! and, to all my previous readers who told me they couldn't wait to see what i wrote next: i hope you love it. i had you all in mind whilst writing <3


	4. Josephs

The Georgian heat was stifling. It had Posey all but staggering back with the force of it the moment she had stepped off of the train but traipsing through Camp Toccoa it felt even stronger. Oppressive and angry, the heat rolled over her in waves, and she found herself glad for her male disguise for she was sure to have looked disgusting in a way she never wanted to when looking like herself.

She wondered, not for the first time, how she was supposed to get through the physical aspect of basic training, though this time it wasn't concern relating to self-doubt so much as the climate. She'd never been anywhere so hot. She felt like she was in an oven.

After picking up her new uniform - two sets of ODs, she was informed, with a set of fatigues and what the clerk called 'jump boots' - as well as her Physical Training (PT) gear, Posey picked her way through the camp until she came across a bathroom. She made quick work of changing before she set off in search of the barracks, jump boots squeaking obnoxiously loud with every step. Eventually, she came upon a cluster of wooden buildings each labelled with the letter 'E' and quickly located the second of them. 101st Airborne, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Second Battalion, Easy Company, Second Platoon she had been told. It was a lot to remember and a mouthful to recite but she thought she must have been in the right place.

Climbing up the three small steps to the barracks took an awful lot of mental encouragement on her part. She had to suck in a deep breath to steel herself before pushing the door open.

The inside of the barracks was nothing special and was, in fact, almost exactly as Posey had imagined it. It consisted of one long room with what she counted as sixteen metal bunks pushed against the walls on either side, extremely low to the floor. Each bunk had a tiny shelf on the wall above it, which would likely fit a helmet and nothing else, and a small, olive drab painted locker at its foot. But, above all and hard to ignore, was the fact that the barracks were so hot the floor could probably fry an egg. Posey winced to imagine what the metal bed frames might feel like if she accidentally touched one of them.

There were already a few men seated atop some of the bunks when she stepped in, likely trying to ensure no one tried to take the bed they'd claimed. They glanced up only briefly when she walked in. Posey stifled her sigh; she supposed she'd have to be the one to make the effort.

"This is home then?" she asked into the silence. The question repeated itself over and over again in her head, the strange inflection she'd used taunting her as she waited on a reply.

"Guess so," answered one man, glancing up at her with a small nod and a smile. He had bright ginger hair and a kind face. "For a while, anyway."

Posey forced a laugh that emerged sounding awkward.

"You can take your pick of the bunks," spoke up another man from the bed opposite the ginger. "No one else is here yet." In contrast, his face was cold and calculating as he watched her.

Posey nodded, grateful for something to do with herself. She headed towards the one closest to the door and on the left, mentally cursing herself for needing to be invited in to a place that belonged to her just as much as it did to them.

"Not so eager to be in on all the action?" a different man teased.

It was only upon looking up she realised all of the men had been watching her in her mental confrontation with herself. She couldn't help her flush but she shrugged anyway in a bid to appear nonchalant.

"Won't forget which one's mine this way," she replied, and grinned when it earned her a laugh. For a brief moment she wondered whether this would be so hard after all.

"George Luz," the taunter declared. He stood up and approached her with a smile clenched around a cigarette and an outstretched hand. He was relatively short, perhaps only an inch taller than Posey herself, with voluminous dark hair and a glint in his eyes. He was the type of man who looked like he had a joke to tell which he desperately wanted to make the whole world laugh at.

Posey shook his hand with a small smile. "Joseph Wells," she replied. The name still sounded odd on her tongue even with how close it was to her own. "Call me Joe, if you like."

One man laughed abruptly from the other side of the room. "Yeah, that's the last thing we fuckin' need. Another Joe." This earned some laughs from around the room but Posey wasn't impressed.

She straightened up and levelled the man with a steely gaze. As far as he knew, she was a man who had the right to be there just as much as he did. She wasn't about to let him break her down on her first day. "Well, there's not much I can do about that."

The man, however, was undeterred by her comment. He simply shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette from where he was reclining back on his bunk, resting against the headboard with his boot-clad feet crossed atop the mattress. "Three fuckin' Joes already and there's only - what? - six of us here?" he went on complaining. "They put any more Joes in Second Platoon we're gonna be an army of fuckin' mannequins."

"And who might you be?" She grinned as her next words popped into her head. She couldn't help it. "You better have a properly interesting name after that speech or you'll look incredibly stupid."

The man scowled, the set of his underbite jaw only hardening. He flicked his eyes over to her with what looked like practised disinterest. "Bill Guarnere."

She laughed. "Unfortunately for you, _Bill_ , I met about thirty of you just on my way in. Sorry to burst your bubble of uniqueness."

The man she recognised as the one who had first spoken laughed almost obnoxiously loudly. Posey turned her eyes on him fully, grinned, and quirked a brow when he made eye contact to encourage him to surrender his own name.

"Donald Malarkey," he told her with a nod and an extended hand. She had to walk over to him to shake it but didn't altogether mind so much, for he was smiling at her kindly. And he'd laughed at her joke, which was always a brownie point where she was concerned. "But everyone calls me Don."

Posey turned back to her bunk to lift her bag onto the mattress just as a man sat opposite Bill raised his hand in a short wave. When she looked up at him, he said, "I'm one of the other Joes. Liebgott." He was thin and looked to be tall, though it was difficult to tell with how he was sitting. He wore a smirk as well, but he seemed the type to not even realise he was smirking, instead using it as a default facial expression. Posey nodded at him in acknowledgement.

"Guess that makes me the last of the Joes," said the man sitting opposite Don. "Hopefully," he added, and then laughed. "Joe Toye." This Joe - the final, _hopefully_ \- was built and athletic, all hard features and dark hair. His smile seemed incongruous to his face, but Posey wasn't uninclined to like him.

"Ah, my brethren," she said, and mentally punched herself in the face for that comment. _Why can't you just be normal?_ "Great to meet you," she added; she couldn't allow her previous words to be left to fizzle in the air.

"Yeah, you as well, Joe," replied George with a jolly grin.

In the silence that followed Posey took the time to unload the contents of her bag into her footlocker. She unzipped her duffle bag and turned it upside down from inside the case, ensuring none of the men who might be watching could see any of the contents, and then worked to rearrange it once it was all safely inside. It was a long and laborious process, especially having to arrange things properly to ensure that, should anyone open her footlocker, she wouldn't expose any feminine undergarments or, even worse, her stowaway teddy bear, but by the time she was finished she could relax a bit more. With her extra time she reclined on her bed like the others, awaiting their next addition to the platoon. Despite finding herself covered in sweat and already exhausted by the heat, Posey was satisfied that she had managed to be successful in her ruse thus far; none of the men had seemed to question her masculinity, which was a win in and of itself.

"Say, Joe," Don spoke up as soon as Posey had lain back on her bed, "where ya from?"

When she glanced up at him he had his eyes on her expectantly so she figured she was the Joe in question - that would take some getting used to. "Oh, um, Boston."

"Oh, nice," he replied, then furrowed his eyebrows. "You got yourself a funny accent there."

Posey grimaced and then wiped the expression off of her face immediately. She thought she'd been doing a rather good job.

"My mom's British," she said, having to think on her feet. "Guess I get it from her."

"Makes sense," Don replied.

Posey let out a silent breath of relief.

"Where are you from?" she asked, and they went around the room from there. Don was from Oregon, George from Long Island, Toye from Pennsylvania, Liebgott from San Francisco (the only one Posey had heard of), and Bill from Philadelphia (and he seemed to be incredibly proud of it).

By the time they'd finished, a few other people had found their way into the barracks. The names they threw out passed in a blur but one unfortunate soul had no idea what he was getting himself into when he introduced himself as 'Joseph Ramirez'.

"Yet another fuckin' Joe!" Guarnere exclaimed with faux-enthusiasm. "They really dumped all of you in Second!"

Posey couldn't help the displeased grimace that twisted her lips. "Are you always like this or is it just nerves?" She almost resented the thrill that ran through her when Guarnere scowled.

"I ain't nervous so I guess I'm always like this."

"Lucky us."

Another man walked through the door and cut the interaction short. Posey couldn't help but grin as she turned to the tall man with hair so black it was almost blue.

"I do hope you're not named Joseph," she told him, unable to contain her mirth. In reality, she desperately hoped that this new man was named Joseph; she hadn't known him for more than half an hour and already she found an unrivalled amount of joy in pissing off Bill Guarnere.

The dark-haired man turned eyes on her that were very much reminiscent of a deer in headlights. She assumed he hadn't expected to be greeted by so many people this soon, or addressed directly so immediately either.

When she didn't turn away, the man cleared his throat and shook his head. "Eugene Roe," he said in a voice much deeper than she'd expected of him.

Posey smiled anyway; it wasn't his fault he wasn't named Joseph - after all, she wasn't named Joseph either.

"Pleased to meet you, Eugene," she said with a smile. She held out a hand for him to shake, largely only because some of the others had done so to her when she first met them. Adjusting to pretending to be a man was already taking a lot of careful consideration. "Joe Wells," she informed him as he shook her hand. "I'm one of four Josephs, so Wells will do."

"Right," replied Roe. Apparently, he wasn't much of a talker.

As yet more men filtered into the barracks Posey was really struck for the first time by how strange it would be to have to live with these men for the foreseeable future. She would be sleeping alongside them, sharing a bathroom with them, eating with them, and everything else. Showering was something she'd decided she'd have to do in the middle of the night, though the risk associated even with that was astronomical. All it would take was one self-conscious man, or one particularly private one, and she'd be found out. Still, she couldn't think about it yet. That was a bridge she'd cross if and when she came to it.

By the time 1800 hours rolled around - Posey had already made sure to verse herself in military time, which wasn't so difficult considering the twenty-four hour clock was a common way to tell the time back home - the barracks were full and Second Platoon were all present. There were no more Joes, unfortunately, but Posey could only remember a select few names of the men who'd arrived after her: Eugene Roe, of course, because he had the darkest hair she'd ever seen and, unfortunately, wasn't called Joe; Floyd Talbert, whose name she remembered because she'd once had a dog called Floyd; Johnny Martin, because he looked like he wanted to be there least of all of them, which made her want to laugh; and Denver Randleman, who'd insisted they all call him 'Bull', which made sense considering the sheer size of him - he was tall, broad, and very southern, though he seemed nice enough.

They all headed to the so-called 'mess hall' together, for which Posey was grateful because she hadn't the faintest of clues on where it was and at least she was sure to have company on her first night. Like many of the other buildings in camp, this one was also made almost entirely from wood. It reminded her a lot of the canteen from back when she was at school, what with its long tables and benches set up on either side of them, though with significantly less grandeur. The food they were served definitely reminded her a bit of what she'd had to eat back then as well.

They had to share the mess hall with the other platoons in Easy Company, First and Third, and as Posey lined up with the men from Second she wasn't alone in trying to scout out what the other platoons were looking like. All she could gauge, however, was that they were both filled with men who looked much the same as the men in her own platoon did. Really, she didn't know what she'd been expecting, but they all looked spectacularly unexciting.

After she'd battled her way through the long queue for food, she sat at a table full to bursting with the men she'd be training alongside and couldn't help but wonder what Mrs. Daniels was doing right now. She knew that she was most likely preparing dinner and a small part of her was desperate to be sitting at the kitchen table in her quaint little house, watching and making idle chatter as she did so. Instead, she was squashed in between a man who'd introduced himself as Skip Muck, who was incredibly funny and managed to draw a laugh out of every single person sat at the table including Guarnere, and George Luz, who very much held his own where showmanship was concerned with jokes of his own. Posey had never considered herself shy or introverted but sitting at that table, sandwiched between such loud characters, she felt like she was drowning in chaos. Men shouted to be heard over the noise, throwing words to each other in all different directions. She tried her best to answer where questions and sentences were directed at her, and even asked some of her own questions to get herself involved, but after a small while she sat poking at her food wondering why she'd ever thought this would be a good idea at all.

None of them had found her out yet but now she was beginning to think that that wasn't what she had to fear most from this whole experience. Instead, maybe she should fear the fact that she was destined to be terribly unhappy for the entire duration of her training, fated to be the ultimate outsider with the secret she was sitting on. Or maybe it was the training itself that she should be wary of, for whilst the likes of George Luz and Frank Perconte weren't too much taller than her they were still already built much more athletically.

Posey sighed and forced herself to eat, knowing she'd never get to sleep later on an empty stomach. She'd already made her bed and now she would have to lie in it. She wouldn't back out now - not that she could, anyway, for she didn't care to know what the consequences would be for such a serious act of subterfuge - and she would simply have to try her best.

She spent the rest of dinner tuning in and out of the conversations surrounding her sporadically, feigning interest occasionally when someone would call her by her surname. Largely, however, she worked to mentally draft the letter she would write to Mrs. Daniels as soon as she got back to the barracks. She smiled bitterly to herself upon signing it off in her mind; she never would have expected that she would miss that woman so much so soon.


	5. Train

_'Dear Mrs. Daniels,'_

"Missin' home already, Wells?"

Posey made a show of rolling her eyes at Guarnere's comment but kept her head bent down over her paper where she had it flat against her copy of _Twelfth Night_. She had the book propped against her thighs where her feet were flat on the mattress, knees pointed skyward whilst she sat back against the metal headboard. She was grateful once more for having gotten to choose her bunk, for one of the three uncovered lightbulbs that hung over the left side of the barracks dangled right above her head.

_'Admittedly, I haven't much to report yet (I've only been here a few hours) so I suppose I'm only really writing to have someone to talk to. Someone I know, that is. Someone who knows me. I'll fill you in on what there is to say anyway.'_

"Got a broad waitin' for ya back home, Wells? That who you're writin' to?"

She didn't know who had spoken but she didn't look up to check. Instead, she smiled to herself and shook her head, rolling her pencil around between her fingers as she considered what she'd write next.

_'Georgia is hot. Stiflingly so. I haven't been so hot in all my life so I hardly know how I'm going to be able to manage intense physical training in such oppressive heat. I'm hopeful, however, that my experience in running for cover from previous years will serve me well where stamina is concerned.'_

Posey couldn't help but laugh at her own equivocation there. She knew she couldn't be too specific in her letters because the army would be checking them to censor before sending them off, but Mrs. Daniels would certainly recognise her intended meaning. 'Experience in running for cover' was a very nice way of putting 'running to the bomb shelter in the pitch darkness whilst the Luftwaffe flew overhead, about to bomb yet another part of a once-glorious city'.

She was bitter to recall that fear. The unrivalled terror she had experienced during the Blitz before she'd been evacuated was something none of these men had ever even remotely experienced. They didn't know the sound of German aeroplane engines so intimately they'd recognise them even asleep, weren't haunted by the high whine of the bombs they dropped right before the resounding crash destroyed yet another school, church, or home. They didn't know fear like she knew it. They didn't know desperation. As far as they were concerned, this was all still a game.

"I got a broad waiting for me back home," a voice Posey recognised as belonging to Skip Muck had declared when she'd been writing.

"Got a picture?" Malarkey asked. He leaned forwards on his bunk as if hoping to catch a glimpse of the photograph even before Skip had retrieved it.

"Faye Tanner," Skip said with a nod.

Posey glanced up to find him showing Malarkey and a few of the other men the picture. Malarkey let out a low whistle whilst some of the others nodded their approval.

"She's a dish, Skip," Luz commented, still gazing down at the photograph. "She got a sister?"

Posey laughed along with the others and turned her eyes back to her letter. She chewed briefly on the end of her pencil as she ran through different ideas of what to write next in her head.

_'The men in my platoon are a patchwork of characters. Some are incredibly loud and boisterous, others mellow and reserved. I fear I've already made an enemy of one of them but he is so very fun to tease. He's very easy to get a rise out of. However, whilst he started it, I vow to try my best to not be so disagreeable going forwards. I'll be working with these men for the foreseeable future, after all, so it would be best to befriend them, I'm sure.'_

"What do you think our CO's gonna be like?" was the next topic of conversation, broached by Malarkey. Indeed, by this point in the evening the barracks were all but vibrating with a mixture of nerves and excitement. None of the men would admit it but Posey caught glimpses of tapping feet and fiddling fingers every time she looked up from her paper. It was a comforting thought that maybe these men might be just as scared about what was to come as she was.

"Tough, probably," replied Skip with a shrug.

"The Airborne's supposed to be one of the best," put in Joe Toye wisely. "The guy who recruited me said."

"Ah, and that's why he picked you, right, Joe?" Luz piped up, a cheeky grin etched into his features. "He took one look at you and said, 'I know the exact place for you, my boy, and it's a paratrooper's life for you!'"

Skip laughed. "Yeah, I'll bet they said the same crap to everyone to get them to sign up. The only reason I agreed was for the extra fifty dollars a month."

A lot of the men laughed and nodded their agreement at this which had Posey's stomach twisting in a mixture of resentment and envy. Imagining only being there for the extra money or for the glory of it all seemed so trivial when she thought about how she was only there out of pure desperation. Still, she supposed that if she hadn't been evacuated and her entire life hadn't been flipped upside down she likely would've enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force or some other such if only to help out. Back in England she'd had plans and joining the war effort to support her country as soon as she was old enough had been a staple in them.

She audibly sighed and shook her head; just because her life was in shambles didn't mean it was the men's fault that theirs weren't. And likely they really wanted to join the military for the same reason she once had: to serve their country. She decided then she'd have to give them all a break and ease up a bit on the self-pity, even though it was so easy to just sit and make herself want to cry.

"I heard if you wanna be in the Airborne you gotta be the best," spoke up Frank Perconte. He was a small and slight man, likely the same height as Posey if not only a smidge taller, and his face seemed to be contorted into a perpetual frown. Behind the frown, however, he was a fiery Italian with a thick Bronx accent, and some of his one-liners _did_ tend to be funny. But perhaps Posey was biased purely because she had been tending to seek out the shorter men in the group and mentally label them as her closest comrades in this entire affair, for if they could do the training then surely she could as well. Thus far her list of comrades included, but was (hopefully) not limited to, George Luz, Frank Perconte, Popeye Wynn, and Johnny Martin with the death glare. She hoped desperately they wouldn't all four of them end up washing out.

"Hey, Guarnere!" Posey called out in response to Perconte's statement, not bothering to look up. "I think you're in the wrong place."

"Shut your fuckin' trap, Wells, I could bench press two of you on each arm in my sleep."

Posey laughed but didn't make to reply - mainly because this was likely entirely true - and went back to writing. When she read back over what she'd written in her previous paragraph she laughed.

_'Okay, well, I can't seem to stop winding him up so that'll have to be an ongoing labour of love, but as for the rest of them I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly._

_'The barracks are stiflingly hot, the beds firm and very near to the ground, and the food quite vile, though other than that I can't really complain. It is green and pale in comparison to your home but it'll do just fine for the time being._

_'We start training early tomorrow morning so I'd best pack this up. Thank you for the book, I've started to read it already and it is indeed one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. And thank you for everything else._

_'I miss you. And I really do mean that._

_'Best,_

_'J. Wells'_

As soon as she'd finished writing, Posey folded the piece of paper and tucked it into her footlocker along with all of the other probably-contraband she'd taken with her. When she settled back onto the bed she allowed herself a minute to take in her surroundings, both the barracks themselves and the men scattered across them. They were a lively bunch, to be certain, but not all of them entirely unlikeable. Her being there wasn't about making friends, that much was true, but if her time in training could come with as little pain and suffering as possible then that would certainly be a welcome change of pace.

She observed a card game for a little while, watching mainly in an attempt to gauge what information she could about the men participating, before all of the lights in the barracks went out simultaneously. Apparently, they took the term 'lights out' very seriously here.

Thus, Posey crawled to the head of her bed and wriggled beneath the covers. The sheet serving as a blanket was thin, scratchy, and entirely redundant in the heat of Toccoa, but it would do a good job of hiding her form in the skimpy PT uniform she had chosen to sleep in, having hoped it would cool her down somewhat.

For a while, Posey laid in the dark, listening to all of the small noises that filled the barracks. The sounds of a whole platoon of men breathing dominated the quiet but there were snores every now and then. Beyond that, there was the gentle breeze from outside as it swayed the trees and the sounds of crickets chirping. Eventually, Posey found a period of time she could work out that everyone was asleep for, a window of opportunity in which she could sneak to the showers. It was a small gap, certainly, and likely wouldn't appear like clockwork every night, but at least she had something to go off of. This fact settled her stomach a tad and allowed her to settle back into the pillow and mattress.

It seemed hours before sleep finally came but when it did she dreamed of the train she had arrived in Toccoa on, though this time she was accompanied by the men in her platoon. Bill Guarnere was shouting his mouth off from one of the seats on the other side of the row whilst George Luz gave loud, enthusiastic impressions from the row across from her and Frank Perconte laughed. Eugene Roe was tucked into the seat between Posey and the window, offering a quiet laugh and a smile every now and then and little more, whilst Skip Muck and Donald Malarkey were as thick as thieves elsewhere in the compartment, their voices and their laughter their only recognisable feature in the haze of the dream state.

Posey herself sat entirely relaxed, settled back into the seat and observing with a grin. She shared a look with Joe Toye at one particular remark Guarnere made, shot a snarky comment of her own back, and then laughed loudly. Then she allowed herself simply to watch.

In the dream, Posey felt at home. She felt settled and welcome and safe. When she woke it would be a sobering realisation that she had been herself in the dream - a girl, with long blonde hair and a face full of gentle makeup - and in reality, her secret would keep her from ever truly knowing that camaraderie herself.

Still, for a little while she had been one of them. For a short while she had been a paratrooper with the 506th and she felt she may also have been happy about it. She could only hope, when she was back to full consciousness, that she'd never end up having to be a paratrooper in real life.


	6. Mountains

Their new commanding officer - Lieutenant Sobel, as had been screamed at them at the crack of dawn - had Second Platoon up bright and early. He ordered them to put their fatigues on over the top of their PT gear and line up in formation outside within two minutes. Posey had never been more grateful for choosing to wear something so skimpy to bed in a room full of men.

All she had to do was slip her fatigues on over her nightclothes and avoid looking up at the various changing men around her as she did so. She was up and lined up in what they all hoped was considered 'formation' in just shy of two minutes.

Lieutenant Sobel was not impressed.

"This," he began, shouting louder than he needed to in order to be heard and especially louder than he should have been so early in the morning, "is the _lousiest_ goddamn formation I have ever seen. Under my command, Easy Company will not have the lousiest _anything_. So, Second Platoon, you are going to go back into your barracks and return within one minute and then you will show me the _best_ goddamn formation I have ever seen. Understood?"

Posey followed everyone else's lead when the men replied in a booming, "Yes, sir," and stood waiting for a formal dismissal. She thanked God she had stood in the middle of the group because she would already have been back in the barracks by now if she'd been at the back.

Second Platoon's officer, Lieutenant Winters, turned to face his platoon and ordered, "Second Platoon, back into the barracks and out again within one minute. When you return you will stand at attention in military formation. Go!"

As she jogged back to the barracks with the rest of the men only to jog straight back out again, Posey decided she rather liked Lieutenant Winters. At least he, unlike Sobel, had told them what had been wrong with their first attempt at a formation, and he'd done so subtly, too. They needed to be stood _at attention_. Posey had peeped behind the settee at enough of her father's war films to know what that meant.

When Second Platoon was stood back in front of Lieutenant Sobel, sweating already even in the early morning and from such little exertion, he didn't quirk a smile even though they stood at attention this time. Instead, he boomed, "When I come to you you will tell me your name as follows: last name, first name, middle initial. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

He went along the rows.

As he did, Posey tuned out the shouted names of her peers and kept her eyes firmly forwards, rehearsing her answer over and over again in her head to prevent a slip up. She rehearsed it so rigorously she even knew what inflection to use with her voice to make it sound like she hadn't been rehearsing. When Lieutenant Sobel came to stand before her she barked at him in her faked deep voice, "Wells, Joseph M., sir!"

Sobel studied her critically.

Eventually, he said, "You think you've got what it takes, Private Wells?"

What the bloody hell was she supposed to say to that?

"Yes, sir!" she said.

"Someone as small as you." Sobel shook his head and gave a bark of a laugh. "You look like a little girl."

The irony.

Sobel laughed once more before looking back down his nose at her. "We'll see if you wash out, Private Wells." With one last bitter grimace the brute of a man was on to the next person in the formation. Posey let out a silent, shaky breath of relief.

As soon as he'd finished 'meeting' all of the enlisted of Second Platoon, Sobel came to stand before them all with a glower and a huff. "Change into PT gear. We're running Currahee."

Currahee. The mountain that overlooked the camp. It was towering, vast, and intimidating. Posey had never really been intimately acquainted with mountains. She felt her heart stop at the thought of running up one.

"Second Platoon, change into your PT gear," Winters reiterated, and with that they all ran back into the barracks, _again_.

The jog to the bottom of the path up the mountain consisted of Posey trying her best to even out her breathing and hide the dread blossoming on her face. She knew the first time would inevitably be the hardest but just how hard that would be, she trembled to find out. None of the others seemed to be half as worried, though, and if Bill Guarnere wasn't afraid then, as far as he was concerned, Posey was even less afraid than that.

Maybe beating Guarnere at everything would be better motivation for completing her training than getting home.

Sobel had them all stop at the foot of the mountain, where they came upon First Platoon and subsequently awaited Third. There was a clear divide between the platoons, just as there had been in the mess hall at dinner the previous day and breakfast that morning, both groups trying to size the other up.

"Second Platoon, nice of you to show up!" shouted one man from First, earning a round of hearty laughs from the men grouped around him.

"Why? You got somewhere better to be?" Guarnere called back. Posey bit back her laugh with all of her might.

As the platoons continued to throw remarks at each other she turned her eyes on her own platoon's officer, Lieutenant Winters, and that of First, a dark-haired man with thick eyebrows and a cheeky smirk whose ODs declared him as Nixon. They were standing close together, discussing something, though both of their eyes were set on the platoons before them. When Winters said something that made his friend laugh, Posey accidentally caught his eye and looked away immediately, feeling her cheeks flush at being caught trying to lipread. When she looked back over again, however, both men were looking elsewhere.

It took Third Platoon around fifteen minutes to show up to the bottom of Mount Currahee, during which Posey's dread about the entire affair only seemed to grow. The knot in her stomach tightened with each minute they were kept in suspense. She couldn't help her eyes from dragging themselves up the mountain as far as she could see from the bottom of the path. It was dusty, long, and above all, steep. Hopefully the view from the top would be worth it - if, that was, she ended up even making it that far; with the way it loomed over her the prospect seemed about three years' worth of training away, which was less than ideal because she didn't have that long.

"Third Platoon, at the back!" Sobel barked at the newcomers. The re-arrival of the company commanding officer meant that Third avoided the ribbing Second had been preparing for them.

"Mount Currahee," Sobel began, addressing them all as he marched up and down the left flank of them. "Three miles up, three miles down." Posey's heart was in her shoes. Three _miles_? "You will run, you will not walk. You will make it to the top, wherein you will tap the stone and head straight back down again. You will run in formation, four men to a row, separated into your platoons. You will be timed." With one last glowering look, Sobel turned and took off at a jog. "Easy Company on me!"

Posey ended up between Joe Liebgott and George Luz with Eugene Roe on the end of their row. They were a patchwork of personalities squashed together and, when they each realised who they were with, none of them seemed to really know how they'd ended up together. As they began their trek up Currahee, Posey set her eyes on the back of the man's head in front of her, Johnny Martin, and tried to keep rhythm with the men at her sides. She had no idea how good her stamina was and could only pray that she wouldn't end up washing out on her very first day.

They ran mostly in silence - that was, until Winters sped up from where he'd been at the back of Second Platoon and jogged past shouting out words of encouragement. "Come on! You can make it up! Lets go, Second Platoon, lets go!"

Whilst Posey was struggling to breathe, Winters somehow found the energy to not only accelerate but call out to them, too. It was beyond her where he stored all that energy.

"Doin' alright, Wells?" Luz asked from beside her, shooting her one glance that had the sweat from his hair flicking onto the side of her face.

"Alright," she affirmed, barely managing to choke the words out. "You?"

Luz nodded, keeping his eyes forwards this time. "Alright."

"Liebgott?" she then asked. She didn't have the energy to turn her head to look at him and could only focus on taking step after step.

"Yeah, I'm alright," came Liebgott's response.

"Roe?"

"Alright."

"Glad we got that covered," Luz commented. If Posey had any extra breath to spare she would've laughed.

The going only got tougher the higher up the mountain they progressed. As Posey's lungs tightened and her breaths became quicker, the path seemed to get steeper at the same rate. Also directly proportional to these variables was the volume and vigour with which Sobel shouted at them.

"You think you'll make the paratroopers running this slow?!" he called out rhetorically. "We're coming up for thirty minutes and none of you have reached the top yet. I'm starting to think we'll need an entirely new set of recruits."

Posey kept her head down to avoid him catching her rolling her eyes. It was day one, what did he expect?

She was all but dead by the time she made it to the top. Their rows and columns had long since dispersed with the thinning of the track. For this, she couldn't help but be grateful, for Luz had made it up much quicker than she had and she knew she never would've been able to keep up with him. There went her hopes of the shortest sticking together.

She slapped the stone - which was actually rather large and cuboid shaped - with energy she could only muster through sheer spite, before turning and beginning her run back down. The descent was far easier than the ascent, though running downhill on a sandy path meant much of her focus was now concentrated on not slipping as well as trying to find enough air to breathe.

Reaching the bottom, she collapsed next to the rest of her platoon who had already made it down, dripping with sweat and breathing so heavily she felt Mrs. Daniels might even have been able to hear it.

Still, even in the midst of exhaustion, she couldn't help but smile; she had made it and she hadn't been last. Small victories.

"That," came Sobel's voice, piercing through the air and dampening her spirits, "was _pathetic_ , Easy Company. If you wanna make it in the paratroopers that will not be acceptable."

He turned to the officers of each platoon and dished out orders. Winters approached Second Platoon looking only half as exhausted as everyone else, but doubly as apologetic. "Second Platoon, follow me to the PT course."

The 'yes, sir' he received in reply was weak and spiritless but it was good enough for him. He turned and led the way without another word.

As she followed, Posey glanced briefly behind her in the hopes of catching a glance at where the other platoons were headed, but doing so almost made her lose her footing with the lack of energy she had to do anything other than drag her feet along. She turned back to face the front and tried not to worry too much about what the PT course would entail.

As Winters explained the obstacle course to them, Posey focused on working out how she'd manage to use what little muscle she had to her advantage, and indeed she spent the rest of the first day that way. She kept her head down, did as she was told, and tried to work out ways to blag what everyone else was able to do with far less trouble. Still, she made it through day one, which was more than she had expected if she was being entirely honest with herself.

She made herself scarce whilst the other men showered and had to lay covered in dirt and dry sweat well into the night. With the excess of physical training, however, the men were out like a light and she was able to slip out of the barracks and to the shower block without drawing any attention to herself.

She kept her undergarments on while she showered just in case of emergency, though she hardly knew how that would help her in the event that someone did happen to walk in. When she made it back to the barracks she wore a small smile. She was hot, tired, and achy, but she was clean. And she'd made it through day one of basic.


	7. Grass

Posey couldn't do it. She could run Currahee and she could sneak out of the barracks and she could fool everyone into believing she was a man but she couldn't do hand to hand combat. She'd tried and tried and tried, but after being thrown on her back for the ninth time in a row she had lost all desire to get back up again. What would be the point? She'd only end up back on the grass in seconds anyway.

"Private Wells, get up!" Sobel called across the training field. She couldn't even find the energy to blush at having been singled out. "You have five seconds or you're out of the Airborne."

With tears pricking her eyes, Posey rolled onto her stomach and secured her arms beneath herself, pushing up onto her knees and then managing to stand. The look she shot at Popeye, her sparring partner, was downright pitiful and she knew it - eyes full of tears, a nasty bruise already beginning to blossom on her left cheek, covered in mud and dirt with shaking hands that she forced into fists. Posey sniffled and then drew her back up as straight as she could get it with the pain wracking her body. She would _not_ cry.

"Again!" Sobel barked. Posey glanced his way only briefly to find his eyes on her and Popeye. She fought the urge to shut her eyes against the hit she knew was imminent.

Popeye looked like he was trying to silently plead with her to get a hit in. And she was trying. No one seemed to ever believe that she failed at things not deliberately but in spite of every standard she held herself to. When she failed she failed entirely against her will.

"Again, Privates Wynn and Wells!"

Posey threw a punch at Popeye with as much energy as she could muster, her face red with the effort and her teeth clenched so tightly she wondered how they hadn't shattered. In one quick movement, Popeye had blocked her and thrown her back onto the ground, albeit reluctantly. This time she wasn't sure whether she would be able to get up, even if Sobel threatened her with washing out again.

"Pitiful, Private Wells," was what Sobel spat instead. He breezed past where she lay crumpled on the floor, his face twisted into a sneer as he glanced down at her. "Your weekend pass is revoked."

Weekend pass be damned. All she wanted to do was sleep anyway.

Popeye offered her an arm up and grunted with the effort it took to get Posey standing again. Once she was up she swayed where she stood and he sighed. "I don't think we should do any more."

Posey shook her head. "No, it's fine. Lets just go again." Maybe one more hit would be what it took to knock her unconscious and she'd be exempt from PT for the rest of the day.

Popeye was grimacing when she glanced his way again. "Are ya sure?"

She tilted her chin up with what she hoped was an air of confident defiance. "Yes."

She let him throw the first punch this time and tried to replicate what they'd been taught about blocking and parrying. With the lack of upper body strength she had to start with and the fact that, even though Popeye was on the shorter side, she was even shorter, she had been set up to fail from the moment they'd started hand to hand that day. Combined with the sweltering heat in the middle of a field in Georgia and the amount of times she'd been thrown on the floor already, Posey knew just as well as anyone that she wasn't going to be able to do it, but she forced herself to try anyway.

Her attempt to throw him down had Popeye stumbling backward not even a full pace. When she huffed out a sigh, she caught a glimpse of the apology on his face and it only made her more upset.

"Not gonna cry," she mumbled under her breath, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out cautiously, overly conscious of the pain in her ribs.

Popeye hadn't made to hit her again so she tried to hit him, and he blocked but didn't parry. She tried to smile at him; he had a good heart.

He sent another punch to her abdomen which she blocked by the width of a hair and her counterattack had so little energy behind it it missed him anyway. The next time he threw a punch she didn't even bother to move.

"Oh shit!" Popeye exclaimed as the blood began to gush from her nose. "Oh, damn, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to actually hit ya!"

"It's okay," Posey assured. Her voice emerged muffled where she had both of her hands clasped over her nose as though she was trying to stuff the blood back in. "Doesn't hurt that much."

"That's a lot of blood," Liebgott observed from beside them.

Posey glanced down to find the front of her PT shirt already soaked with crimson. Her hands were doing next to nothing in preventing the spillage. When she lowered them to wipe them on her shorts they were slick with blood. She began to fill dizzy and then she began to feel nervous; if she had to go and see a medic they'd try to change her shirt, and then they'd see the bandages she'd used to flatten her chest under her clothes.

This sudden, dawning realisation had her hands shaking, which had onlookers worried, which had Winters coming over.

"You alright?" he asked kindly, watching Posey with furrowed brows until she looked up at him.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

"Lets get you to the med bay, alright?"

"No, it's okay," she tried to reason, wiping hastily at the blood on her chin and neck. "I'm okay. Sir."

"That's an order, private."

"Yes, sir." Her voice emerged meek and small. She felt like a little girl again. The entire affair had transported her right back to her childhood, to the aftermath of her many experiences playing with her brother - he'd always ended up getting a little bit too rough and she'd always ended up in tears. As Winters asked her another question, one that didn't register, she tried desperately not to cry.

"Wells?" Winters prompted her.

"Sir?"

"Gonna pass out?" he asked, holding out a hand ready to steady her if necessary.

Posey shook her head, then swayed in place from the dizziness. "No, sir."

"Right," Winters replied. He didn't look convinced in the slightest. When Posey set her eyes on the grass in front of her, gazing curiously at the red now dripping from the green, she heard Winters sigh. "Guarnere! Get over here!"

A called out 'yes, sir' accompanied the sound of jogging on grass as the man in question came to stand beside Posey. She felt his eyes on her but didn't look up.

"Accompany Private Wells to the med bay. I'm worried he's gonna pass out so keep an eye on him."

"Yes, sir," Guarnere replied immediately. "Don't worry," he added, his smirk poorly concealed even in his voice, "I'll make sure he gets there alright."

"Alright, Wells?" Winters checked in one final time.

"Yes, sir," she replied, dragging her eyes up from the ground and watching as he swam in her vision. He nodded and turned to carry on moderating the pairs still working on hand to hand.

Guarnere turned to leave the field directly and Posey quickly turned back to Popeye, who still stood looking so guilty and apologetic. "I'm really okay," she assured him with a quick smile. "It wasn't your fault, it was mine."

Popeye offered a smile. "Hope you feel better quick."

She laughed a little bit. "Thanks."

"Wells! You comin' or what?!" Guarnere called out from behind her.

Posey sighed. "Yes."

It just had to be him, didn't it?

"Aren't you supposed to be making sure I don't pass out?" Posey spoke up from behind her supposed warden where he was already a few feet ahead of her.

Guarnere scoffed out a laugh. "I can hear your feet. I'd know if you passed out."

"You wouldn't be able to do anything about it though," Posey pointed out. "He probably picked you so that you'd be able to carry me the rest of the way if I did pass out. Stop me from hitting the ground and all that. You can't do that from so far ahead of me."

"What, you wanna be best friends now or somethin'?" Guarnere snarked in reply, though he did slow down and wait for her to catch up.

Posey laughed. "I'd rather not do any more damage than's already been done, actually, but if you wanted to be my friend you could've just asked."

"Yeah, right."

Posey giggled to herself for a few paces until she felt another wave of gushing blood and, with it, another spell of dizziness. She came to a halt and pressed one hand to her forehead and the other to her chest as she waited for the light-headedness to fade.

"Alright?" asked Guarnere cautiously. He sounded a million miles away, or as though he was attempting to talk to her from another room.

Posey tried to nod but she wasn't sure she was successful. She grimaced as she realised she was doing a bang-up job of trying to avoid going to the med bay.

"Wells?"

"I'm fine," she said, pulling her back up straight and painting a smile on her face. "I feel fine. I can go the rest of the way myself."

"What? But -"

"Trying to avoid hand to hand, Guarnere?" she attempted to tease. "Was Bull really beating you up that badly?"

Guarnere rolled his eyes. "I ain't lettin' you go the rest of the way by yourself. Last thing I need is for someone to find you passed out somewhere and report it back to Sobel that I disobeyed an order."

Posey sighed. "You're such a pain in the arse," she muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Lets go, then."

As soon as they made it to the med bay, Guarnere turned and left without a glance back or a word of goodbye. Posey giggled quietly to herself as she waited on one of the doctors coming to find her. She tried to distract herself from her worries with whatever she could find to lay eyes on. 

The barracks that had been set aside as the med bay were roughly the same size as the barracks she now called home and similar in every other conceivable way, even down to the beds situated there. The heat of the place, too, mirrored the heat of the barracks. She thought it might even have been hotter in there than it was outside, and that was saying something, because outside it was scorching. 

"Private," the doctor on duty greeted as he eventually got round to her. "What seems to be the problem?"

Posey didn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. What seemed to be the problem? Her nose had been gushing what seemed like pints of blood for the past fifteen minutes, that was what 'seemed' to be the problem. She wondered what kind of doctor wouldn't clock a t-shirt and neck covered in blood and make the connection.

"My nose, sir," she told him, giving a vague gesture to the appendage which was now throbbing. It felt hot, as though it was radiating heat, and also peculiarly felt as though it had been flattened into her face. It burned with pain but also ached. In short, it hurt a lot. "We were on hand to hand and I missed a block."

"I see," replied the doctor. "I'll just take a look." True to his word, he did, and the inspection took about fifteen seconds before he declared, "Well, it's not broken. You're just a bleeder, I guess." Posey couldn't help but scoff; that didn't seem like something a doctor should be telling a soldier in training. "I'll give you some ice and that'll calm it down - numb it and ease the swelling and so on - and then you'll be alright to go back. Just tell your lieutenant you can't do any more hand to hand for the rest of the week."

No more hand to hand for the rest of the week? She'd take a gushing nosebleed any day for that outcome. That was better than a weekend pass.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

The doctor waved her away as he went to find an ice pack. "Yeah, no problem. Just -" he faltered as he bent to open the freezer and retrieve the ice pack. "Just get better at fighting, alright?"

In spite of herself, Posey laughed. "Right. Yeah. Of course, sir."

She sat with the ice pack against her face for long enough that the cold didn't bother her any more, wondering all the while what she'd been so worried about. Of course the doctor hadn't tried to get her to change clothes - he wasn't a stylist, or even a supply officer. Posey sat chuckling to herself, likely still a tad delirious from the blow to her nose, as she contemplated her paranoia in keeping her identity a secret. She honestly couldn't believe she'd made it this far. She didn't quite know whether to be overjoyed at her success or incredibly offended that none of them had been able to recognise her as a girl - did she really look _that_ much like a boy?

When the ice pack got warm and started to drip water down her front, she let it do so for a while, allowing the water to clean up some of the blood.

Posey walked back to the PT field contemplating home. When she got back to England, she decided, she'd learn how to style her short hair in a way that looked undeniably feminine, and she'd be able to wear dresses and makeup and perfume again and all of this would feel like a million years ago. One day, she thought, she'd laugh about the ordeal, about having to go through paratrooper boot camp just to get home. For now, though, she just had to focus on getting through it - what came after was something she would grant herself the luxury of worrying about when it came around.


	8. Rifle

Suddenly surrounded by so many people, it became easy to forget the loneliness. In her new persona, Posey had people to talk to, people who wanted to talk to her, and people who wanted to listen to what she had to say. Friends, even. Maybe. And it became so easy to pretend that it was all real, that she really was Joseph Wells from Boston, Massachusetts, and that she wasn't spinning a most dizzying lie.

At times she found herself wondering where she would draw the line. Where was the distinction between appearance and reality when her appearance had to become her reality in order to survive?

It was mealtimes she tended to find the loneliest, in an ironic sort of way.

Mealtimes were, in a word, loud - fizzing with laughter and shouting and the clinking of cutlery against plates. Men were bundled together on benches like sardines in a can, knocking elbows and knees with every slight movement. But even from the midst of it all, sat firmly in the eye of the hurricane, Posey found herself feeling all alone, and all because the men had begun talking about family.

So many of them came from families overloaded with children, rattling off the names of siblings upon siblings. Guarnere and Luz both had whole battalions of sisters who they spoke of fondly. Each of the men, upon reflection, spoke about their families with nothing but fondness - and excitement to get to visit home at Christmas.

"What about you, Wells?" asked Malarkey from where he sat opposite her. "Who you got waiting at home for ya?"

Posey thought hard on how to answer. Who _did_ she have waiting at home for her? She hadn't had correspondence from any of her family for months, which she forced herself to believe was due to how far from home she was and not anything more disastrous. A brother in the RAF, a mother in the heart of the Germans' bullseye, and a father she wanted nothing to do with, that's who she was supposed to say, though she wasn't actually certain any of them were waiting for her at all.

"Just my mom and my brother," she replied eventually with a tight-lipped smile.

"How old's your brother?" asked Skip with genuine curiosity.

Posey chuckled to herself. "Twenty-one. He's serving in the Air Force." Not entirely a lie.

"Didn't wanna follow in his footsteps?" Malarkey wondered around a sip of water.

She shook her head. "He flies the planes so I thought I'd jump out of them. How else do you one-up a fighter pilot?"

This earned her a round of laughter which was just enough to turn the spotlight onto someone else. When Toye was in the midst of recounting his family situation she breathed an inaudible sigh of relief and took a large gulp of water. Now she just had to remember that she'd told them that and pray she didn't accidentally trip herself up.

Showering at night left her exhausted. Between the intense PT and the long days, by the time they were dismissed for bed all she wanted to do was collapse and sleep for years. That, however, was a luxury she couldn't afford - she dreaded to think what would happen if anyone caught her in the shower; in that situation, being dropped from the Airborne would be the least of her worries. She shuddered every time she thought of it and thus she forced herself to stay awake for long enough that she could sneak out in the early hours of the morning. Focusing on staying awake was good for one thing, though, and that was preventing her from crying - thinking of home made her sleepy so she didn't allow herself to do it. Whilst tears still welled in her eyes at the most random of moments, at least they didn't fall at night. That was her one solace.

Running Currahee actually became one of Posey's favourite parts of basic. It was intense and gruelling and exhausting, but at least she didn't have to think too hard about anything that mattered - that was, anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping on anything. With all of her focus on making it to the top, her time quickly became one of the best. True, she was at the bottom of the theoretical league tables in everything else, but in running Currahee? She was practically legendary. Perhaps because of her small, wiry frame as opposed to in spite of it.

"How'd you make Currahee so fast?" Toye asked her one evening when they were all enjoying free time before bed. He was watching her curiously from where he was reclined on his bed, hands crossed behind his head as he puffed lazily on a cigarette.

Posey sent him a small smile and a bashful shrug. "Not sure. I guess I just focus, is all."

"Focus?" Guarnere piped in, his voice ever reaching her ears like nails on a chalkboard. "What d'ya mean focus?"

"You know, pay attention. I try not to think about anything except the ground in front of me, instead of how hot it is or how tired I am or how bad I need to breathe." She left a beat for the words to sink in before she looked down at her lap with a smug smile. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, of course. I shouldn't expect you have sufficient brain power to focus on anything."

Guarnere scoffed. "Yeah, well you might be good at runnin' up that fuckin' mountain but I've got you beat in everything else. Maybe try focusin' there, too."

Posey rolled her eyes and mimicked him childishly which earnt her a laugh out of Luz and, if she had caught it correctly, the tiniest of grins from Roe. She smiled to herself in victory at noticing this but soon turned back to her book.

From the corner of her eye, Posey watched as Luz rifled around in his footlocker and attempted to slyly remove something. She smiled to herself, shut her book, and turned to him.

"Luz," she said.

She watched with thinly veiled amusement as he jolted and attempted to hide whatever it was he was holding. "Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?" She gestured for him to come over and, after hiding this mystery object back in his footlocker, he did. "Where are you going to hide your contraband?" she asked quietly, and grinned when he sputtered.

"My - uh - I don't -" He cleared his throat and stood up straighter. "I don't have any contraband."

Posey only laughed. "Right. Of course. And neither do I." She shook her head with a smile. "But say, hypothetically, if you did have contraband, where do you think you'd hide it? Because, hypothetically, I wouldn't have a clue where to hide mine."

"Right," Luz replied with a growing smile. "Well, I'd have to say it depends what the contraband is. Plain sight might work."

"In the pillow?" she wondered aloud, giving her own pillow an experimental poke as if to see whether it would work as a potential hiding place.

Luz shrugged. "Sure. Or under the mattress. I think that's where I'd hide mine. Hypothetically."

"Sure," Posey replied. She considered his words for a moment and then nodded, satisfied. "Good talk."

Luz laughed and turned to head back to his bunk to do whatever he was about to do with his contraband. Posey didn't bother to turn and look - she had to trust he wouldn't try to seek out her contraband and she hoped that in ignoring his, he would ignore hers. She was banking on a big lot of luck, she knew, though that seemed to be the case with everything these days.

She hid Teddy the teddy bear in her pillow as soon as night fell. Home felt somehow closer now that he was sleeping in the same bed as her again.

They began weapons training the following day.

"Those rifles you have been given are M1 Garands," declared the captain due to train them. It wasn't Sobel, nor was it any of the other officers in Easy. Posey thought his name was Captain Michael. "You'll have the same one for the entirety of your training here so look after it." These words were enunciated slowly and properly, a short pause between each word.

Posey looked down at the rifle she was clutching and couldn't help but smile. This was _her_ rifle. She had gotten far enough to have been given her own rifle. It was heavier than she thought it'd be.

She was sat cross-legged in the grass of one of Camp Toccoa's many training fields, her rifle stood up beside her with its butt in the grass, pointed skyward. She had to squint into the sun to see the captain but every now and then his pacing would find him blocking the sun from her eyes perfectly, making him a silhouette. This was one of those just such moments.

"Before you can shoot it you need to know how load it. Before you can load it you need to know how to prepare it. Before you can prepare it you need to know how to aim it. Before you can aim it you need to know your firing positions. And before you know your firing positions you need to know how to hold it." Captain Michael shot them all a whisper of a grin. "I will teach you to do all of those things. If you prove yourself competent, you may just get to shoot real bullets today. Most of you, however," he shot another grin at the crowd, though it was less timid this time, "will not be shooting for weeks and weeks yet."

Posey felt her heart sink. This was the one thing she actually wanted to learn from boot camp and she may not even get to do it for another few weeks?

"You will not be shooting any rifles until you are absolutely ready. Some of you may not even need to shoot your rifles at all once you get into combat. Your designation within the company will be decided largely based on how well you shoot." Posey thought he threw a wink out at the crowd, though it was hard to tell as he flickered in and out of her limited range of vision in the sunlight. "On your feet. Lets start."

Captain Michael spent the better part of the next half an hour teaching them all how to attach the strap to the M1, how to wrap said strap around their left arms, and how to load in a magazine. After that they learnt how to hold the M1, and then the firing positions, and then how to hold the gun in the firing positions, and then how to dry fire.

By the end of their first hour on the field Posey felt like she could collapse. The heat was sweltering, sweat running down her back like the water of a much needed shower. The sweat on her forehead dripped into her eyes and made them sting, and her hands were so slick she found it difficult to keep any sort of grip on her rifle at all. Still, she tried to keep her focus; she wanted to be one of the lucky few who would be shooting today.

Captain Michael led them over to a shaded tent-like area which dropped the temperature significantly. It was still incredibly hot and even more humid but at least they weren't in direct sunlight. Posey sat as close to the front as she could manage and kept her eyes locked on the blackboard stood before them like her life depended on it. They were about to learn about windage and elevation, both of which relied heavily on a foundational understanding of mathematics. Posey had always been rather good at maths and could only hope that her proficiency in the subject would help in pushing her to the front of the shooting queue.

The captain explained that adjusting the rifle's elevation entailed adjusting the rear sights to account for the natural drop of the bullet, whilst the windage meant adjusting the sights either side to account for the effect of the wind. These were both things Posey had never before considered went into shooting a gun. She hung onto the captain's every word, wishing she could make notes.

By the end of it, Posey had a somewhat firm grasp of what was going on. The elevation turned out to be a whole lot easier to grasp than the windage but she had a decent idea on how to adjust both. As the captain finished speaking she was fidgeting where she sat, desperate to have a go herself.

"We'll head over to the rifle range and start with blanks. If you prove to me that you've listened to everything I said and understood it, maybe I'll let you shoot some real bullets." Posey's heart raced at the prospect. "On your feet, Second Platoon, let's go!"

There were multiple sergeants at the rifle range ready to supervise the firing of blanks. The men of the platoon were told to pair up, taking turns in shooting so the other could call out hits and misses. Posey found herself paired up with the man who'd been standing on her left, Popeye. She'd already partnered up with him before in hand to hand, and even though he'd nearly knocked her unconscious she liked him well enough. He was one of the shorter among the men which served to place him high on the list of those she considered friends.

Popeye seemed to be shy about the shooting so Posey offered to go first. She began with the upright firing position, her left leg in front of her right and her torso leaning just slightly forwards over the gun. She adjusted her sights to account for windage and elevation and prayed her maths was accurate as she awaited the call from Captain Michael.

"Check safeties," he began, stalking up the line behind each of the pairs. Promptly, a whole row of safeties were clicked off of their respective guns. 

"Ready," he continued, pausing just behind where she stood.

"Aim," he added. Posey shifted, adjusting her feet more out of nerves than anything else.

"Fire."

She fired her first ever round out of a gun. Sure, they were blanks, and only a few hit the target, but she had fired a gun. The adrenaline coursing through her veins filled her with exhilaration.

As soon as Popeye had finished calling out her hits and misses, Posey felt a firm pat on her shoulder. "Nice work, private."

"Thank you, sir."

"Adjust your non-firing hand so you can support more of the weight there. You'll hit the target more consistently."

Posey nodded and smiled to herself. Her elevation and windage had been accurate, at least.

Posey and Popeye switched as soon as Captain Michael had walked away and, unfortunately, she didn't have any hits to call just yet. She tried to help Popeye with windage calculations without seeming too patronising and after a few swaps the both of them were calling out more hits than misses.

"Names?" asked the sergeant closest to them who'd been moderating their corner of the range.

"Private Wells, sergeant," Posey said with a nod.

"Private Wynn," added Popeye.

"Right," said the sergeant with a nod of his own. "I think you two might just be ready for bullets."

Posey turned to Popeye with a grin and shared her excitement with him. Firing a gun seemed to be one thing she was a natural at.

There were six of them, in total, who had been allowed to fire real bullets. Posey and Popeye were the only pair, and joining them were Johnny Martin, Myron Ranney, Carwood Lipton, and, regrettably, Bill Guarnere. She didn't look over at him as they lined up but she could practically feel his smirk from where she stood two people along from him.

"Make your adjustments," Captain Michael called, traipsing up and down the line of them. "Real bullets are heavier than blanks. Account for that."

Posey upped her elevation, taking a guess at how much more a bullet might fall based on how much heavier she thought the bullet magazine had been than the blank when she'd put it in. She recalculated her windage and adjusted it only slightly before finalising her firing position.

"Safeties," the captain called.

Posey could feel the weight of the eyes of the rest of the platoon watching them preparing to fire their first rounds of real bullets.

"Ready."

Posey's heart raced in her chest, a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

"Aim."

She held the target firmly in her sights, focusing on the bullseye.

"Fire."

The bang that emerged when she squeezed the trigger was deafening. Her ears rung with the aftereffects for what felt like minutes as opposed to mere seconds. She felt her feet falter with the strength of the recoil and had to force her eyes to reopen even in the midst of the cacophony of gunshots still ringing out on either side of her.

The sound was so much like the crashing of bombs. This time, though, there was no whining. There was no warning.

But, she reminded herself, there was also no bombs. No houses were being destroyed. No people were dying.

She squeezed the trigger again, careful not to jerk it, and smiled when she hit the target, contrary to her first attempt. It wasn't on the bullseye but at least she'd gotten a hit.

The bangs of the gunshots were less scary than the crashing of bombs. She wasn't crouched in a bomb shelter, wondering whose house would have been destroyed this time, whose life would have come crashing down by the time they emerged. This time, she was in control. So, she let herself fire at will. No bullseyes, but a few hits.

She may not have been any good at PT but she knew, with a little more training and practise, she could be a hell of a shot.


	9. Passes

"Tomorrow's Monday. It's a clean slate, boys. And if we can manage it we'll all find ourselves in possession of some weekend passes and a whole lot'a dough to blow on Friday night."

Posey laughed to herself where she sat atop her bunk, listening to Luz proclaim to everyone in the barracks his hopes for a weekend pass. Thus far, weekend passes had been to the men of Easy Company what God had always been to good Christians: something thought about at all hours of the day and yet never once seen. They strove week in and week out for perfection, scrubbing their rifles and boots until their hands were raw and making their beds with all of the precision expected of them, purely in the hopes of getting their hands on a weekend pass. In all their weeks of basic training, every weekend pass Easy Company had ever had had been revoked by their cruel ruler, Lieutenant Sobel.

This was one thing all of the platoons had in common; Sobel never let any of them finish a week with a pass. Eventually, they'd all realised this and reached a truce between them, though there was still playful competition between the platoons when they'd all run Currahee together or pass each other on the training fields. Still, they spent their Friday nights and weekends mingling, entering and leaving each of the three sets of barracks at will. Posey found that First Platoon actually had some decent guys in it, even reluctant to admit it as she was. As far as she was concerned, though, Third would always be beyond redemption. 

Despite the elusiveness of the famed weekend passes, each week on a Sunday night Luz traipsed between the barracks insisting that this week would be the week. They'd earn themselves weekend passes, according to him, and go to one of Toccoa's many bars and get absolutely wasted. Posey always laughed along with him but the thought unsettled her; even though she knew they were about as likely to get weekend passes as she was to win the Victoria Cross, she couldn't help the nervous energy that bubbled up in her stomach at the thought of actually having to go to a bar one of these days. She'd been fifteen when she'd left England, not old enough to drink by British law, and thus had never even had so much as a single drop of alcohol. Even at eighteen she wasn't legal to drink under American law, their legal age being twenty-one, but she also knew that training to go to war meant that bartenders didn't really care all that much how old you were.

Thus, the thought of having to follow the rest of her platoon to a bar and pretend that she could hold her liquor as much as she could enjoy it was terrifying. She was shorter than the other men, and thinner too, and she knew that one sniff of the barmaid's apron would likely send her horizontal. She most certainly did not need any of the others seeing that.

Or God forbid she got loose lips when she was intoxicated. No, getting drunk on a weekend pass was not an option. The one thing she appreciated Sobel for was his revoking them each week without fail.

"Maybe make your bed properly this week, Luz, and you'll get one. How 'bout that?" Perconte chimed in from where he was shuffling a pack of cards on his bed.

Posey snorted a laugh but didn't look up from the letter she was preparing to write.

"I _did_ make it properly, Perco!" Luz exclaimed with an air of defiant enthusiasm not at all necessary for the point he was making. "Sobel just likes to chew me out for no reason."

"Sobel likes to chew everyone out," Guarnere said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Get used to it. Ain't personal."

"Maybe it's a little bit personal," Posey piped up, smiling to herself. "He seems to hate Smokey-from-First's guts."

"Yeah, well, he ain't so sweet on you either, Wells," Johnny added in his familiar deadpan.

Posey laughed. "Yeah, because I'm shit at PT."

"Great with a rifle, though," Luz acknowledged.

"Very kind of you to say," she replied, chuckling to herself.

"Did you used to hunt? 'Fore the war?" Popeye asked from the bunk beside hers. When she looked to him he was watching her curiously. A Southern man as he was, Posey supposed he had probably done his fair share of hunting growing up.

Posey shook her head. "Nope. First gun I ever touched was an M1." She shot him a grin. "Just a natural, I guess."

As the conversation carried on around her, she put her pencil to paper and made a start on her letter.

_'Dear Mrs. Daniels,_

_At an unexpected turn of events, it appears I'm a natural marksman. Who would ever have guessed? Thank goodness, too, because I'm not so good at the physical training aspect of boot camp - which is, admittedly, an awfully big part of it._

_I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to tell you about the training itself so instead I suppose I'll tell you a little bit about the barracks life. The men in my platoon are (mostly) perfectly agreeable and we get along swimmingly. I find myself surrounded by masses of people at every hour of the day so it's difficult to find myself lonely, really, which I'm immensely grateful for._

_There is little else for me to disclose; the food is passable, the weather scorching, the barracks tiny, and the training hard. It's not all so bad and I do think I'm improving where the physicality of training is concerned._

_How are things with you? I do hope you're keeping busy and not finding the house too quiet without me. Some of the men are talking about visiting home for Christmas and I was wondering whether you might have me back. Feel free to say no as we're also welcome to stay on the base. I was merely curious as to whether you might like a few days' company, though._

_Also, have any letters or news arrived from across the pond? If you could forward any correspondence to me I'd be incredibly grateful!_

_Best,_

_J. Wells'_

As soon as she'd finished writing, Posey tucked the letter into the book she'd been using as a desk and set it back in her footlocker.

The rest of the evening was largely passed with repetitive conversations about weekend passes - with the routine their lives now had and the monotony they'd been thrust into there was little else for the men to get excited about. Posey was more excited by the prospect of Christmas and not having to play a part for a while. Whilst it was true that Christmas was a long way off yet, the thought of getting to be Josephine as opposed to Joseph for a while was one that kept her smiling even when the lights across camp went out.

Then she got to wondering how her family would be celebrating Christmas this year and the smile dropped. She hated wartime. She hated not knowing where her family were or what they were doing. And, above all, she hated Hitler for starting this stupid war.

Her smile that night was replaced by a scowl, even hours later as she headed to the showers in silence and washed as quickly as she was able. She hated that she'd been evacuated and hated that she'd had to join the army to get home. She hated that she had to pretend to be a man and that all of her hair was gone and that she had hardly any possessions anymore and that she was completely and utterly stuck. Of all the things she hated there wasn't a single thing she could do to rectify any of them.

Posey fell asleep that night with a frown on her lips and a heavy weight on her heart. Whilst she could let herself get wrapped up in military life from time to time and have a joke with the men in her platoon, reality would always be right there, waiting to rear its ugly head and sober her right up. Not for the first time, she dropped into slumber wondering just how everything had come so terribly undone.


	10. Similar

Posey had to be the only person in Easy Company who didn't want anything to do with her weekend pass. Honestly, she couldn't even believe they'd managed it. Somehow, the entire company had gone an entire week without having any of their passes revoked. It was a miracle, really - or a curse, if you were female and underage and had never had a sip of alcohol in your life.

Just like she always did, Posey managed to sneak out of the barracks and into a bathroom stall to change - how no one ever noticed that she did this, she had no idea, but she always liked to joke to herself that she may have made a brilliant spy in another lifetime. She wasn't laughing this time, however, as she changed into her dress greens, which fitted her just as well as every other army-issued item of clothing she now owned, which was to say not at all, and grumbled at the prospect of having to go to a bar. Not going would only arise suspicion but going would likely only end in disaster. She had devised to simply pretend to drink the beer she'd be buying and slip out as early as possible. She could only hope to God that it worked.

When she returned to the barracks, holding her PT gear in her arms, she was swept up in the same whirlwind of chaos she'd managed to sneak out in. Grateful once more for choosing a bunk right next to the door, she packed her clothing into a laundry bag ready to have washed in the morning.

She sat on her bunk and waited whilst the rest of the men got ready. It was a strange thing for her to be going out somewhere that warranted getting dressed up but not spending much time on her hair or having to wear any makeup at all. She wasn't sure whether the minute amount of time it took her to get ready was something she should be enjoying while it lasted or sobbing into her pillow about, so she tried to keep her mind off of it by tuning into the conversation taking place whilst the men changed behind her.

"I am gonna score so many dames tonight, just you watch," Talbert was declaring. "You boys better be ready to watch and learn. I'll show you how it's done."

Posey rolled her eyes and kept to fiddling with a thread on one of her buttons, head ducked as she sat facing the door to the barracks so she didn't get an eye full.

"Sure thing, Tab," Luz replied, his voice dripping sarcasm. "I've been waitin' for a lesson on how to strike out for a while now. Unfortunately, it's never actually happened to me."

"Ha ha," Talbert deadpanned. "You're looking to the wrong fella on that account. Now Lieb, I'm sure, is the guy you're after."

"Fuck off, Tab," Liebgott entered the conversation with the usual level of disdain coating his voice. "The only reason you score so many dames is 'cause you ask out the entire female population. By law of averages alone some of 'em are bound to say yes."

Posey laughed to herself. At least, she thought, if they were all more focused on 'scoring dames' than they were on any alcohol consumption she might manage to make it through the night with her secret and her dignity still intact. She suddenly found herself feeling much more at ease about the entire affair.

"We ready to go?" Guarnere asked after a small while.

His question was met with replies all in the affirmative and Posey made her way out of the barracks along with the rest of Second Platoon.

The night outside was quiet, the air still humid from the heat of the day, though a very slight breeze meant that it wasn't altogether an uncomfortable evening for a walk. The bar they were to be visiting - as chosen by Toye, who had apparently scouted them all out on his way in - wasn't too far from the base. The walk there only took around ten minutes. Those ten minutes were filled with the bubbling excitement of men and boys who hadn't been to a bar in weeks - or, for some of them, ever.

As soon as Posey set foot in the bar she was overwhelmed by the sheer cacophony of sound. People were chatting loudly, shouting over each other and calling out their orders to bar staff whilst music played at full volume in the background. Patrons scattered everywhere wore bright smiles and let out big laughs before sipping their drinks, and for a moment Posey faltered. This was nothing like England had been.

Honestly, she didn't know what she had expected, but as she followed Bull further into the chaos she felt her heart ache. Here was America, an ocean away from the war that had torn her life apart. And whilst in Britain they'd been starving and frightened and mourning, this is what it had been like for the Yanks. Not for the first time, she felt resentment for them bubbling up in her heart, regardless of how she tried to push it down. It wasn't an uncommon opinion back in Europe that the Americans had taken too long in entering the war, just like they'd done in the last lot, though now Posey was seeing for herself what life was still like in the New World that it hadn't been for years in Europe, she felt that bitterness renewed. She knew that when she got back home her family would think her insane for wanting to escape such blissful ignorance, but in that moment she didn't want a thing to do with America.

Posey managed to slip between a couple standing to her right and circled back the way she'd just come, briskly on her way to the door. She felt rather than saw the confused glances being shot her way by the men of her platoon but ignored them, trying to stuff anger and sorrow and longing all back down before she made a scene.

The gentle breeze of the darkening night was what she needed to calm down. Only once outside and leaning against the brick of the building did she feel like she could breathe. She focused on taking slow, deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, until she felt the sting of tears dissipate. The anger remained, though, and the longing, though these were things she found she could never truly escape from.

She spent a while outside, breathing in the humidity and attempting to exhale any lingering traces of resentment for the men she was just beginning to think of as friends. In all honesty, she knew it wasn't their fault; they weren't to blame for Britain's rationing, or the Blitz, or the war, and even if they were a few years late, they were here because they were training to help. Her anger, really, wasn't at them but at the universe for putting her in this position. As she pushed back into the chaos of the bar, she tried to hold onto that.

"Hey! Wells!" Luz called out as he caught sight of her pushing her way through the crowd. Posey looked up immediately and offered a smile. As soon as she was close enough that he didn't have to scream at the top of his lungs, Luz added, "You alright?"

Posey smiled and offered a nod. "Yeah. Just needed some air."

"What, you never been to a bar before?" Guarnere cut in from the opposite side of the table. When she looked over to him, he was wearing a smug smirk. How readily Posey could've punched it right off his face.

"Have you?" she shot back, narrowing her eyes. She didn't wait for an answer, turning on her heel and heading straight to the bar; she'd need some alcohol if she wanted to get through the rest of the night without ripping someone's head off.

When she returned she found the men at Luz's table had managed to wrangle a chair for her, and she slid in between Skip and Luz with a grateful smile. She tried to take her first sip of beer inconspicuously, though the face she made at the taste couldn't be helped. But at least she hadn't vomited.

"Hey, Wells," Luz said again. She found him grinning when she peeled her eyes open. "How old are you?"

Posey felt a traitorous blush spreading across her pale cheeks, the heat spreading to the tips of her ears. She coughed awkwardly into her fist before muttering, "Eighteen."

"What?"

"Eighteen," she said louder, internally groaning at the ribbing she was no doubt about to receive. 

"This your first ever drink?"

In response, she rested her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands. "Let me die."

"Hey, everyone's gotta have a first, right?" Skip put in kindly from beside her, patting her on the shoulder. "'M not surprised it's your first. No offence, but you look twelve."

Posey laughed but didn't look up. She only nodded into her hands.

"Yeah, well, you look like a girl too, so I ain't surprised you ain't holdin' it well."

Posey supposed she should've been flattered that her femininity managed to shine through such classically masculine attire, but instead all she felt was pique. She shot a glare at Guarnere. "Do you ever shut that abnormally large mouth of yours?"

"Wells, why don't you just drink your beer, alright? Might be a bit more bearable when you're drunk." He tacked a roll of his eyes and a sip of his drink to the end of his sentence, though his eyes were shining with smugness.

If looks could kill, Bill Guarnere would have been cremated already, but beyond glaring there was nothing Posey could do. She made a show of rolling her eyes and muttering under her breath before she took her next sip of beer, and fought with all of her might to keep from pulling a face at the bitter taste of it. If that man had been any shorter than her, or even any thinner, she'd have lurched across the table and knocked him horizontal. As it was, she knew he'd be able to knock her unconscious with only a puff of air in her face and had to resign herself to internalised bitterness towards him. But if he made another comment she was sure she would snap.

"Hey, let's play a game," Malarkey spoke up from Skip's other side. "It'll help ya get the beer down easier." He directed this last part at Posey with a good-natured wink.

"I can't help that I'm young!" she exclaimed, covering her face.

Malarkey laughed and waved her away. "Tilt your head back and drink as much as you can in one go. You won't taste it much and it'll sure get ya wasted."

Posey glanced between Malarkey and her pint with visible trepidation; 'wasted' was not something she intended on being tonight.

"I don't know -" she began, and was cut briskly off.

"Come on, Wells! I'll race ya!"

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size to out-drink, Malark?" Skip cut in, laughing.

"He's finally realised what we've all known this entire time!" Liebgott called over from the table next to them. "That a first-time drinker is the only person he can beat!"

"How can you even hear our conversation?" Posey called back to him. She laughed when he smirked and turned back to his own table.

"So, Wells," Malarkey began once more, leaning over his forearms on the table to look at her, "what d'ya say?"

Posey glanced between the faces gathered around her, trying to mask her anxiety with nonchalance. She took in Malarkey's excitement, Skip's amusement, Luz's enthusiasm, Toye's indifference, and finally Guarnere's smugness.

"I'll do it," she said, turning in her seat to face Malarkey.

Like most things in her life recently, she was fuelled entirely by spite.

Luz counted them in and the others all counted the seconds it took for them to get the pints down, slamming their palms into the wooden table top as Malarkey and Posey raced to finish the fastest. Naturally, Malarkey came out on top, but Posey was mere seconds behind him.

"Hey! Not bad for a rookie!" Luz exclaimed, patting her firmly on the back. "We'll have you beatin' everyone in here in no time!"

All the while Posey had a hand pressed firmly to her mouth whilst she breathed heavily through her nose, trying desperately not to gag. She could only nod in response to Luz, all of her energy focused on keeping the alcohol down.

Malarkey bought her her next drink - he'd insisted, since she'd been such a good sport about losing, though she thought he was perhaps just on a high from winning - and she found this one much easier to get down. Her sips became bigger and her disgust significantly less. After a while, she felt warm and excited and giddy. Was this what it was like to be drunk?

Her table and the table beside them soon became one, their tables pushed together and chairs gathered around. Posey found herself sipping away at her third drink, laughing obnoxiously loudly at something Luz had said and talking quicker than anyone could hope to comprehend.

When Talbert sat down she grinned. "Floyd! Where are your dames?"

Liebgott laughed loudly from the seat beside him. "Yeah, Tab, where _are_ your dames? You did tell us you were gonna show us all how it's done, after all."

Talbert laughed, albeit against his will, as he raised his beer to his lips. "Fuck off," he muttered before taking a sip.

"There's your lesson in striking out, Luz!" Skip called across Posey.

"Thank you, Mr. Talbert, it's been well received," Luz said, crossing his arms on the table in front of him with a feigned air of refinement.

"Say, Wells, how many drinks have you had?" Talbert asked with a throwaway roll of his eyes at Luz.

"Anything to get the heat off of you, right, Tab?" Posey teased, giggling as she sipped at her beer.

Talbert laughed. "How many?"

She held up three fingers, giggling like a schoolgirl.

Talbert furrowed his eyebrows and made to say something before Skip cut him off. "Go easy on him, alright? It's his first time."

"Ain't his fault he can't hold his beer," put in Guarnere, lacking the good humour everyone else was speaking with.

Posey's giggling faded as she turned to him. "You know," she began, fighting to retain her Boston accent, "you're really rather nasty. I don't like you at all."

"Feelin's mutual, Wells," Guarnere drawled. He stood up without another word, presumably to go get himself another drink.

"What's the deal with you and Gonorrhoea?" Skip asked. He grinned when Posey began to giggle again.

"Gonorrhoea," she repeated, smiling from ear to ear. "I like that. That's funny."

"They got off on the wrong foot," Toye explained, ever composed as he leaned back in his chair.

"They're just too similar, I guess," Malarkey added.

Posey gasped. "We're not similar at all!" She downed the rest of her drink and frowned, crossing her arms firmly over her chest. "Old 'Gonorrhoea' and I don't have a single thing in common and I'm incredibly offended you'd say such a thing!"

"Right, I think it's time to get you back to barracks," Skip said, laughing. He rose from his seat and picked up his jacket off the back of his chair.

Luz followed suit on her other side, finishing the rest of his drink in one and rising to his feet too. "Yeah. I ain't ever seen anyone go British when they're drunk so I think that's how we know it's time to leave."


	11. Nicknames

"Is he outta his goddamn mind? Makin' us run Currahee three times in one day, who the fuck does he think he is?" Liebgott ranted as he pushed back into the barracks after his shower. His hair was wet and dripping in his eyes which seemingly only served to make him angrier.

"The CO of this company?" Luz suggested in a deadpan, not even bothering to look up from his hand of cards.

Posey stifled a laugh and kept her eyes trained on her own hand. Malarkey had suggested starting a game of Crazy Eights - which the men of Second Platoon were known to play as an evening pastime - and Posey was desperately trying to win based purely off of the knowledge she had acquired from being a spectator. She didn't think she was doing very well.

"Yeah, well, I don't see him doing a full fuckin' day of PT plus running Currahee three times," Liebgott retorted bitterly.

"He does run Currahee with us, though," Toye spoke up from where he was smoking on his bed.

"Joe, who's side are you on?" Liebgott snapped, all but throwing himself down on his bunk and letting out a loud huff.

"Wells, it's your turn," Luz said casually around his cigarette.

"It is? But I just went!"

"There's only four of us playin'."

"I think you're just trying to make me lose."

"Paranoid," Malarkey commented.

Posey laughed. "Competitive," she corrected, and took another card from the pile.

"God, my arms ache like hell from holding that goddamn rifle all day," Skip complained from just outside the circle of players where he'd been watching the game. He punctuated his sentence by rubbing at his forearms, eyebrows scrunched together as he grimaced.

"You sure it's from the rifle and not somethin' else, Skip?" Talbert called out crudely.

Posey scrunched up her nose and turned back to look at Tab if only so he could catch a glimpse of her disgust.

"Got no idea how anyone's supposed to shoot that thing with how heavy it is," Skip continued, choosing to ignore the suggestive comment.

"How d'you shoot it so good, Wells?" Malarkey asked with genuine interest. "I'm surprised it doesn't weigh you down!"

Posey pouted. "I'm not that small!"

"Yeah?" Luz asked, grinning. "Go stand next to Bull."

The comment received scattered laughs from the rest of the barracks. Posey rolled her eyes. "Bite me."

"No, I'm serious!" Luz exclaimed. "Go stand next to Bull!"

Posey huffed but she got to her feet anyway, making her way over to an expectant Bull.

The reaction was instant.

"See!"

"What a height difference!"

"Standin' there makes you look even smaller!"

"But his name's Bull because he's so unusually big!" Posey insisted in a whine. "He'd make any of you look small! Perco isn't even that much taller than me."

"Fuck off am I, Wells," Perconte commented drily.

Luz was giggling like a schoolboy as he observed the height difference between Posey and Bull. "If he's a bull then you're a - a..." he trailed off, searching for the perfect comparison. Posey watched as his eyes lit up when he found it. "A duck! That's what we'll call you from now on!"

"Duck?" Posey asked, thoroughly unimpressed. "You're gonna call me Duck?"

"How 'bout Duckie?" Skip chimed in.

Luz clicked his fingers and pointed at Skip with a laugh. "Duckie! That's perfect!"

"That's so -" Posey began, tripping over her words, "so - so -"

"Perfect!" Luz finished for her. "I know!"

When she caught his eye, Malarkey was grinning. "Get your ass back over here, Duckie, we've got a game to finish."

Posey groaned whilst the other men of the platoon laughed. She headed over to re-join the game with numerous pats on her back and greetings with her new name.

The following morning Posey was up bright and early - even earlier than the rest of her platoon - with terrible stomach pains. The day she'd been dreading had finally come upon her, having been delayed likely due to the stress of everything: she had come on her period. She was woken up by the aching in her stomach and immediately felt ice cold dread wash over her. There was no mistaking what that was. Now she just had to wait for the blood.

She snuck out of the barracks and arranged the cloth she used for blood-absorption before traipsing back across camp. It wasn't even seven yet and the heat was already stifling. As she pushed back into the barracks and collapsed onto her bed she wanted to scream at the universe. Instead, she laid there pretending to be asleep and waiting for the wake-up call.

She was short in her exchanges with the others for a large portion of the day. The heat and the pain and the blood and the hormones all amalgamated in a remarkably terrible mood, and she refused to even respond to anyone as the company ran up Currahee.

At the rifle range she fired more shots than she had previously, though her balance was off so her aim was too. With each turn she took at firing she got increasingly frustrated and had to consciously remind herself to cool down - the men didn't, couldn't, know what was going on and she couldn't give them any reason to suspect anything was awry.

Her frequent trips to the toilet, however, didn't go unnoticed.

"Wells, that's gotta be the fifth time in the last hour," Johnny spoke when she'd sat back down at their table in the mess hall. She'd been coming back from one just such trip to the bathrooms. "What the fuck is going on with you?"

Posey panicked and searched frantically for an answer. "Uh - food poisoning?"

Johnny raised his eyebrows. "If you had food poisoning so would the rest of us. We eat the same damn food."

Posey huffed. "Look, I don't know what's wrong with me, Johnny, alright? I'm not a doctor. You want a diagnosis and a prescription, why don't you put yourself forward for a medic? Then _you_ can tell _me_."

"Jesus. Who pissed in your cornflakes?" Guarnere muttered.

It took all of the strength she had inside of her, but Posey studiously ignored him.

"So," Luz spoke up, changing the subject, "who's still got their weekend pass?"

"Not me," said Skip.

"Nah," added Malarkey.

"Nope," Posey said.

As the others all chimed in, that seemed to be the general consensus.

"Damn," Luz huffed as soon as all of the responses had come in. "Looks like I'm gonna be spending Friday night on my own."

Malarkey laughed. "Yeah, don't hold your breath on keeping that weekend pass, Luz, we've still got two days left."

Posey felt like she was going to be sick. "Does anyone want this?" she asked the table at large, pushing her tray away from her suddenly. "I'm not hungry."

Before Perconte and Liebgott could race to see who could grab the plate fastest, Johnny's voice cut them off. "No one's having it. What's going on with you today, Wells?"

Posey shrugged, breathing through her nose in an attempt to quell the nausea. "I don't know. I told you that." Then she sighed and rested her head in her hands. "Just don't feel well," she mumbled.

"Too bad," Johnny snapped and pushed her tray back towards her. "Ain't no way you're getting through another run up Currahee without eating anything." Posey looked up and opened her mouth to respond before she was briskly cut off. "Eat it."

Without another word, she shovelled as much food into her mouth as she could and chewed. This time she did nothing to try and help the nausea; if she threw up, it would be going all over Johnny, and she didn't have the slightest problem with that.

In the end, she managed to make it through the rest of the day without vomiting at all. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though; when she got up in middle of the night ready to head off to the showers, she caught sight of a giant blood stain on her sheets.

"Oh, no," she muttered under her breath. She knelt on the floor to get a closer look at her bunk in the darkness and could've screamed when she felt for herself how sodden her sheets were. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."

She got to work stripping her bed immediately, trying her best to stay close to the ground in case anyone woke up.

As soon as she was out of the barracks door, she breathed a silent sigh of relief into the humid air. She set off at a brisk walk, clutching her shower equipment and bedsheets close to her chest. As she neared the bathroom block she couldn't even believe she'd managed to get away with it; bleeding through her sheets, stripping the bed, gathering her shower things, and escaping the barracks all in silence and in the middle of the night. Honestly, how hadn't anyone noticed?

"Hey! Wells!"

_Oh shit._

"Get your ass back here!" Johnny called after her. She sped up and heard him muttering in his pursuit of her, "Fuckin' runnin' out the barracks in the middle of the night -"

She was so close to the bathrooms. Just a few more steps.

"Wells!"

She raced in and threw her sheets into the closest stall. Just as she was about to make it in there herself, a hand yanked her back by the collar of her ODs.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Johnny growled. He was levelling her with his signature icy scowl and let her go roughly only once he was sure she wouldn't try to run.

Posey came up blank. "Um..."

"Is that a hard one?" Johnny demanded. His glare only hardened.

"I just - um -" Posey stuttered out, hands grasping desperately at the trousers of her ODs as she searched for an answer. "I just needed to go to the bathroom."

"Yeah. Everyday in the middle of the fuckin' night. Why?"

Her jaw hung slightly open, eyes blinking rapidly as her mind went blank. "Well, I don't really know. I just -"

Johnny narrowed his eyes at her so she stopped talking. In the low lighting of the bathrooms in the middle of the night, the single electric light only partially lit everything. It made him look almost menacing.

"Something's going on here," Johnny said. He kept his voice low and didn't tear his eyes away from her once. "I don't know what it is but I'll figure it out."

Posey nodded. "Okay." She didn't know what else to say.

Johnny took a step back, still not breaking eye contact, and inclined his head in the direction of the stall Posey had reached for. "Go on, then. If you need to go so bad."

Posey nodded, turned, and froze when she heard his sputter. "What the fuck -?!"

She whirled back around immediately, hands clasped over what she assumed was a traitorous blood stain on her ODs. "I can explain."

"Why the fuck are you bleeding?"

"I -"

She watched, powerless, as he put it all together in his head. She had to give him credit for how quick on the mark he was.

"You're a fucking girl!"

"I can explain!" Posey insisted. She shook her head rapidly and held her hands out in front of her as if hoping to keep him at bay.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing here?!"

"I just want to go home!" She shook her head again, quick gasps of panicky breath rattling through her chest. "Joining the military was the fastest way to get home and the recruitment officer convinced me to sign up for the Airborne."

Johnny went to speak but she bravely cut him off, rushing to add, "I don't have any intentions of actually fighting. I just need to get through training and get to England and then I'll be gone. I just need to go home." She didn't know when she'd let her accent slip but it rang out clearly in the wake of her words, a sharp contrast to Johnny's American twang.

"God damn it," he said eventually, laughing bitterly and shaking his head. "A girl _and_ a Limey."

Posey's cheeks were flushed in embarrassment but she drew her back up in defiance. "An evacuee," she corrected. "The Blitz forced me out of my home whilst you Yanks were lounging in yours. No bombs, no rationing, no conscription, and, as far as you were concerned, no war. Don't call me a Limey and spit it like it's an insult. We've been in this war a hell of a lot longer than you have and it was reluctant cowardice that forced me to your country."

"That same cowardice force you into our army, too?"

Posey scoffed out a laugh. "No, not cowardice." She shook her head. "Desperation. You don't know anything about that yet. But you will."

Johnny paused and took the time spent in silence to simply watch her. Posey felt herself trying to shrink under his piercing gaze and forced herself to stand tall and level him with her own heavy glare. She tried to force herself to believe that she didn't have anything to be ashamed of.

Eventually, Johnny said, "Don't tell me your real name."

Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, that hadn't been it. 

"What?"

"Don't tell me your real name," Johnny repeated, "in case I slip up."

It took a moment for her to understand, but once she did she began smiling brightly. She was equally as surprised at his reaction as she was relieved. "Really? You'll help me?" As soon as she received a nod in reply, Posey beamed and flung her arms around his middle without thinking.

"Get off me," Johnny said, the words forced out through gritted teeth. "You might be a girl but that don't make me soft on you."

"Right," Posey said, nodding as she retreated to a respectful distance. "Sorry."

Johnny nodded and they fell into a short silence again.

After a small while of fidgeting, Posey cleared her throat. "So, can I use the toilet now or..?"

"Oh. Right." Johnny spared her one final nod before turning on his heel and retreating, gone just as quickly as he'd appeared.

As soon as she was alone, Posey huffed out a sigh. "Stupid," she muttered to herself harshly. "You should know better." Still, she couldn't help but be conscious of what felt like a weight being lifted off of her shoulders; she trusted that Johnny really wouldn't tell anyone, and to trust someone was liberating, in a way.


	12. Buddies

Posey knew she was being watched. She could feel the pressure of eyes on her, searing through her clothes and into her skin. Every time she turned she found all eyes averted but she knew who the gaze belonged to. Johnny Martin, of course. No one else had a gaze powerful enough.

Ever since he'd discovered her secret, Johnny had seemed to make it his personal duty to keep a watchful eye on her. She wondered whether things made a lot more sense now that he knew - why she was so much smaller than everyone else, why she struggled with the upper body strength aspect of PT, why her accent was so strange - or whether he was looking at her with new eyes now that he knew. Whatever she'd assumed upon the initial revelation, however - that he'd be supportive and a close friend or whatever naïve thing she'd assumed - had been wrong. Johnny seemed to keep his distance now more than ever. In a way, it quite stung.

She felt his eyes on her so steadily one morning at breakfast she brazenly turned in her seat to level him with a stare of her own. She didn't say anything, simply stared, until he eventually snarled out a, "What?"

"Do I have something on my face?" she wondered aloud. "Is that why you're staring at me?"

"I ain't staring at you."

"You were." Posey smiled smugly as she turned to face the front again when he didn't seem to have a response.

After that, the weight of those piercing eyes was significantly less, though it was still there. At mealtimes, during free time, whilst they were running Currahee or at the rifle range. Really, his eyes seemed to be seeking her out constantly. Testing her, perhaps. Waiting for her to fail. Or maybe he was simply trying to work out how she managed to keep her secret so tightly under wraps that none of the others seemed to suspect a thing. She thought the whole secret must have seemed incredibly obvious to him now.

She wasn't sure whether it was simply paranoia, but every time she left the barracks in the middle of the night to head to the showers, she felt eyes following her every move. She glanced back over her shoulder multiple times to check she wasn't being followed, determined to have some forewarning this time, though he never followed her again. None of them did. Each time she returned to the barracks and managed to get back in bed undetected she breathed a silent sigh of relief. The whole ordeal was more exhausting than she ever could have imagined, both physically and emotionally.

She always woke up in the morning feeling like she'd slept mere minutes as opposed to hours. Her head seemed to constantly ache, her eyes burn, and her muscles to scream at her to stop moving. Every wake up call was as much a shock to her system as the last, an unfortunate result of only being able to shower in the middle of the night.

As the entirety of Second Platoon lay in their bunks in silence one Sunday morning, Posey reluctantly blinked the bleariness out of her eyes and gazed at the small amount of light soaking the floor by the window. It must still have been early - much too early to be awake on a Sunday, in any case - though she found the quiet of the barracks and the gentle beauty of the early morning light to be calming. She felt settled as she laid there, eyes hazy but gazing at the small pool of light on the wood of the floor, not as reluctant to be awake as she usually tended to be.

"Hey, don't designations come out tomorrow?" were the first words out of one George Luz's mouth, forcing them all to drag themselves to consciousness. It was a weekend pass-less weekend, though the rest of the platoon all seemed to still manage to wake up feeling like they'd been hit over the head with a shovel.

"Yeah. I think so," replied Malarkey, his voice thick with sleep and muffled by the blanket his face was still buried into.

"What d'ya think you'll get?"

"Luz, go back to sleep." Presumably, Malarkey's words were accompanied by an eyeroll - if, that was, his eyes were even open at all.

"You'll be a radioman, Luz," Posey chimed in. She rolled over in bed to find him standing in the centre of the room dressed in his PT gear, seeming to be grinning at the world. Posey couldn't help but laugh at the sight of him stood there in his socks, staring at the ceiling whilst everyone tried to hang onto sleep around him.

"You think?" Luz asked, turning to look at her. He was still grinning, though now his eyebrows were raised.

"For sure," Posey replied, shuffling around until she was comfortable. "Big mouth like yours, they'll snap you right up. Who else can talk so loud they'll be heard in a warzone?"

"You," Guarnere grumbled from the other side of the room. "Will the pair of ya go the fuck back to sleep?"

"Oh, I take it back," Posey said. She turned back to Luz and shared a grin with him. "Guarnere's got a big enough mouth. Maybe he'll be a radioman too."

"Shut your fuckin' trap, Wells, 'fore I shut it for you."

"What would that entail, exactly?"

"Luz, Wells, Guarno," Toye cut in, "go the fuck back to sleep."

"Aw, come on, Joe," Luz crooned, sauntering over to stand at the foot of Toye's bed. "Aren't you even a little curious what you'll get?"

"No," Toye replied flatly.

"Alrighty then."

Posey admired Luz's ability to smile at everything. He was a happy soul. She thought she might even consider him her closest friend in boot camp - they'd seemed to bond over their shared and unspoken possession of contraband.

"Well, Duckie," Luz continued. He spared a moment to giggle at the nickname he'd given her, which seemed to never lose its comedic appeal from his perspective, before going on, "I think you're missing out a key loud-mouthed individual."

"Do you so?" Posey replied, quirking a brow.

"Yeah," Luz said matter-of-factly. "See, I know for sure there ain't anyone in this platoon - hell, even in this whole damn company - that speaks louder or more often than Second Platoon's own Eugene Roe."

Posey couldn't see Roe from where she was laying but she would've bet any money that he had flushed bright red. He was paler, even, than her, and that was saying something. A whole lot shyer, too; Luz's sarcasm was dripping.

"Aw, Luz, leave the man alone," Posey replied, poorly concealing her grin. "He can't help that he's got a lot to say."

"You two are awful," Malarkey cut in. "Go to sleep."

"Y'know," Luz began, undeterred, "I think I'd make a great medic."

"Really?" Posey asked around a yawn.

"Sure," Luz replied. He added no more.

"Well -" Posey began, and was cut briskly off.

"Another fuckin' word out of either of you and you'll regret it, so help me God." Though Posey couldn't see him, the voice unmistakably belonged to Johnny Martin.

Posey giggled into her pillow and listened to Luz's footsteps presumably retreating back to his bunk.

"You got it, Johnny," he said, his grin audible in his words. "Ain't that right, Duckie?"

"Not a peep," Posey promised, attempting to conceal her smile. The barracks fell back into silence the moment she finished speaking.

Posey took the time to contemplate what designation all of them might actually receive. The possible options that she knew of were rifleman, mortarman, medic, radioman, and machine gunner, though she was sure there were more. She was hoping to be assigned rifleman. She had no idea whether she was good enough with a gun but there was a lot less responsibility associated with being a rifleman than there was with being something like a medic. Plus, there were more of them - she wouldn't be putting anyone in a bind or putting the company at risk by leaving when they got to England if she was a rifleman. If they picked her for a medic, on the other hand, she knew it would be disastrous. She didn't know how many people would be chosen as medics but she knew they would be far fewer in number than riflemen. She wouldn't be able to leave as easily if she was a medic. No, she needed to be a rifleman. She could only hope her marksmanship would end up proving her worthy of the title to whoever was responsible for dishing out these designations.

After thinking for what was likely much too long on the possible designations, she fell into a light sleep. When she woke again it was to the sounds of various men dragging themselves out of bed.

"Breakfast?" Skip asked, his voice thick with sleep.

All he got in response was a series of lethargic nods. Still, that was good enough for him, and he set to getting dressed into his ODs.

Posey herself sat up and rubbed at her eyes until she felt she could keep them open. She sat staring at her lap for a few moments, simply listening to the small sounds that had filled the barracks, before she leant over to the end of her bed and reached for the lid on her footlocker. After a few moments' struggling she huffed loudly and rolled off of the bunk onto her feet, traipsing to her footlocker and removing her ODs as soon as she'd gotten it open. She made quick work of putting the jumpsuit on over the top of her PT gear, which she always slept in, and shoved her feet into unlaced jump boots as soon as she was finished. She contented herself with tucking the laces in, much too tired to bother with tying them up, and buttoned up her ODs as she followed the rest of the men out of the door.

When the sunlight hit her face, Posey's eyes shut immediately. It was much brighter now than it had been when she'd first woken up, the sunshine less a delicate glow and more a harsh beam. She had to rub at her eyes again before she could reopen them, and when she did she found Roe had waited for her whilst the others had continued on to the mess hall.

Posey shot him a smile and walked to meet him. "Thanks for waiting."

"S'alright."

As they walked together in companionable silence, Posey contemplated said companion. Her and Roe weren't all that close, though they did tend to end up at the same table at mealtimes and they were always in the same row when running Currahee. The rows of four that had been inadvertently formed on their first ever run up the mountain had stuck, so Posey always braved the mountain alongside Luz, Liebgott, and Roe. Still, she was mildly surprised he'd chosen to wait for her. He surprised her sometimes. This quiet, reserved man with the darkest hair she'd ever seen seemed to have one of the warmest hearts. She made a mental note to look out for him more.

"You know we were just messing around earlier, right?" she spoke up into the silence, breaking the rhythm of their boots on the gravel.

"Hm?"

"Luz and I," she clarified, squinting at him through the sunlight as they walked. "We didn't mean anything by it. You know that, right?"

"Sure," Roe replied. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before forcing himself to send her a smile.

Posey giggled to herself and smiled at the fact he'd made the effort.

"So what do you think you'll get tomorrow?" she wondered, shoving her hands deep into her pockets. It was still hot - she didn't think Georgia ever wouldn't be - but there was a cool breeze blowing today. It was refreshing but a bit chilly on the exposed skin. "Your designation?"

Roe shrugged and looked down at the ground ahead of him as he walked. He didn't speak for a while and Posey thought that might be the only answer she'd get, until suddenly he shrugged again and said, "I dunno. Rifleman, maybe."

"I'm hoping for rifleman," she admitted. "Seems like less responsibility than the others."

"Yeah, well, you're a good shot," Roe replied. His eyes were set firmly on the ground, revealing nothing of his facial expression. "I'm sure you'll get it."

"Well, you're not a bad one," Posey reasoned in response. "Did you used to hunt before the war? A lot of the other Southern guys used to hunt."

Roe laughed. "So 'cause I'm Southern that means I hunt?"

Posey shook her head, a grin twisting her lips. She'd managed to get a real life laugh out of the one man in the company she'd been sure wasn't capable of it. Then she giggled as she replied, "You tell me."

"I didn't used to hunt," Roe replied after a beat. "First timer, just like you."

"You been listening in on my conversations, Roe?" she teased. She grinned as she looked ahead of her and caught sight of the mess hall and the back of the rest of Second Platoon filing in.

"You talk so loud it's impossible not to."

"If that's what helps you sleep at night then you keep telling yourself that."

When she turned to look at him beside her, Roe was shaking his head. He had a poorly concealed grin on his lips and his arms crossed, his eyes unwavering from the ground. That was good enough for Posey and she turned back to face the front as they finally reached the mess hall.

Just as she was about to enter, she turned and shot Roe a grin. "For the record, I hope you get rifleman too. Then we can be buddies!"

She turned back to the front too quickly to gauge Roe's expression but she did hear his laugh, even over the cacophony of a company of men at breakfast.

Breakfast was always later on weekends and filled largely with the sounds of raucous men complaining obnoxiously of their hangovers. As she got into the queue for food, Posey took the time to gaze around at the men of Easy Company scattered between the benches, shovelling food into their mouths at a much faster rate than necessary and shouting much louder than they should've been. Despite how exhausting and difficult her life was these days, she couldn't help but think that maybe there wasn't anywhere else she would've wanted to be spending her Sunday morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas to all who celebrate it!! i hope you have the loveliest of days!!!


	13. Numbers

After all of the suspense and anticipation, the designations ended up simply being printed on three sheets of paper, one per platoon, and pinned to one of the walls of the mess hall. Posey wouldn't have noticed them there at all had Shifty from First Platoon, eagle eyed as he was, not pointed them out upon Second Platoon's arrival.

"Designations are posted up on that wall," he informed them in his soft Southern drawl as they made their way from the queue for food to their usual tables.

Suddenly, all Monday-morning lethargy had dissipated. A wave of men rushed to throw their trays down onto whatever table was closest in order to head straight to the lists. However, what they found was not necessarily what they were expecting.

"1607?!" Malarkey called out as soon as he'd gotten over there. "What the fuck is 1607?!"

"Yeah, I got that too!" Skip added.

"NCO!" Talbert cried out, his eyes trained on his own designation. "Non-commissioned officer, right? Does that make me a sergeant?"

"What's your number, Tab?" Posey asked him from the back of the crowd as he waded his way out of the fray. She wasn't close enough yet to find her own name.

"745," he replied.

"That's a rifleman," she told him. "Congrats!"

"Hey! Duckie!" Skip sidled up beside her and asked, "You know what these numbers mean?"

She shrugged. "Some of them."

"1607 ring any bells?"

Posey laughed a little bit. "Sorry. I can't help you there."

"Fuck," Malarkey cursed under his breath from behind him.

"Fuck this," Liebgott muttered from Posey's other side. Then, louder, he said, "Why the fuck are you taking so long?! Come on, move it!" He punctuated his words with a few pushes to the backs of the men in front of them, though all it served to do was irritate those men, who weren't even at the front themselves.

"NCO!" Guarnere cheered above the noise. "Ha! I'm a fuckin' sergeant!"

"Brilliant," Posey grumbled to herself. "Last thing I need is to be in his squad."

Luz appeared beside her, having taken the place of Skip and Malarkey. He laughed at her comment. "Hey, maybe you'll be an NCO too!"

Posey couldn't suppress her giggle. "Me? Sure. I have about as much chance of being an NCO as I do of beating Bull in hand to hand."

Luz laughed but he didn't deny it.

"What are we hoping for?" he asked instead. He looked between Posey and Liebgott as he awaited an answer.

"745," Posey replied instantly. "Rifleman."

"745," Luz repeated, nodding. "Yeah, I'd be happy with rifleman."

"God, can we move it the fuck along?!" Liebgott demanded once more, crossing his arms. He got up on his tiptoes in an attempt to see who was at the front and draw them back. "Ramirez, you've been at the front for five fucking minutes! Move it!"

"You want me to find your name for you?" Ramirez asked.

"No!" Liebgott shouted back. "I want you to fucking move so I can see it for myself!"

A whole lot of pushing and shoving later, Posey, accompanied by Luz, Liebgott, and Roe - their Currahee row, funnily enough - made it to the front. She made quick work of finding her name on the middle sheet of paper, turning her eyes straight to the bottom and seeking out 'Wells'. The number she found next to it made her grin.

"745!" she cheered, her smile splitting her face. "Rifleman!"

"What's 605?" Liebgott asked her.

"Heavy machine gunner," she replied. "They must have you mistaken for Bull," she joked.

Liebgott rolled his eyes. "Shut it, Duckie."

"Luz, what do you have?" Posey wondered, stepping aside to let him look.

Luz's eyebrows furrowed the moment he located his name. "178?"

She couldn't help her laugh. "Radioman!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe I was right!"

Luz laughed too and shrugged. "Could be worse."

Posey rolled her eyes and looked past him. "Roe, what do you have?"

Roe's eyes flicked to her immediately. He walked over to where they stood off to the side with a bashful look on his face. "I'm, uh -" he began, and then shrugged, "- I'm a medic."

"A medic?" Posey echoed. She considered it for a moment before nodding, the beginnings of a reassuring smile making their way onto her face. "I can see it," she said.

Roe offered her a small smile in return but little else.

As the four of them began to walk back to the tables, Posey turned back to Roe and grinned. "Don't worry," she began, a certain light dancing in her eyes, "we can still be buddies even though you aren't a rifleman."

Roe laughed, nodded, and took a seat on the bench they had come to stand in front of. Posey smiled to herself as she did the same.

"This isn't mine," Liebgott, sat across from her, realised aloud as soon as he'd sat down. He threw a noncommittal gesture to his tray and looked to Luz expectantly.

Luz shrugged. "It's all the same stuff anyway."

The majority of breakfast was spent in bubbling excitement now that new ranks and designations had been delivered. Those who had been promoted to NCOs were the most excited, overjoyed at the prospect of each having their own squad of men to boss around. All of the machine gunners were excited to get their hands on the heavy equipment, and, well, the riflemen were mostly just glad their designation was something they already knew how to do. They wouldn't have to learn a new skill, at least.

Malarkey and Skip eventually found out that they had been designated mortarmen and seemed quite pleased with that. They spoke hurriedly and excitedly with heads bowed together about their hopes for being in the same mortar squad. Posey wasn't sure whether that would be a brilliant idea, considering how in sync with each other they seemed to be, or a terrible one, considering the fact that the two of them together only ever seemed to spell trouble. Either way, she was happy to see them pleased with their designations.

Roe didn't say much during breakfast, likely thinking over what it might mean to be a medic in a warzone, and Posey left him to it. She thought that if she had been chosen for a medic she would be terrified, not only at all that responsibility but at the fact she'd have to be running towards the bullets as opposed to away from them to save whoever she could. It sounded terrifying. She pitied Roe, for sure, but she didn't envy him. Still, she didn't doubt he'd make a great medic - he had the focus and the empathy. And he'd always seemed like someone she could trust, even from the first day she'd met him.

For her part, Posey remained mostly silent too. She was battling against a whole host of emotions that fought to make her throw up her breakfast: apprehension at how intense training was likely to get now that they'd made it this far, fear about having to potentially kill someone now that she'd been deemed a rifleman, and then relief when she reminded herself that she wouldn't ever end up in a warzone anyway. Not if she was lucky, at least. As long as everything went according to plan and they didn't end up in the Pacific. Then the fear was back again, and amplified; she could _not_ end up in the Pacific.

Easy Company began PT that day with a run of Currahee, because of course they did. Sobel told them to appreciate the PT gear while it lasted because the next time they ran it they'd be in full pack, now that they each knew what they'd need to be carrying once out on the frontlines. Posey couldn't help but dread that more than anything else.

"Where do we run?" Sobel belted as he ran up the mountain alongside First Platoon.

"Currahee!" they all answered as one.

"What does Currahee mean?"

"We stand alone!"

"How far up? How far down?"

"Three miles up, three miles down!"

"What company is this?"

"Easy company!"

"And what do we do?"

"Stand alone!"

"You have thirteen minutes to the top! I will be waiting, Easy Company!" Sobel took off at a sprint to make it to the top ahead of them, calling, "Hi-yo, Silver!" as he went.

As she watched him, Posey had to suppress a groan; how he had the energy after already making it three quarters of the way up, she had no idea.

Hand to hand, straight after running Currahee, went about as well as it usually did, but at least she didn't end up with a bloody nose this time.

"Requires improvement, Private Wells," Sobel had grumbled at her as he passed her and Popeye. Posey hadn't reacted but was secretly pleased that this was a step up from the usual 'pitiful', 'pathetic', or 'downright disgraceful'.

Posey and the rest of the designated riflemen of Second Platoon shot their M1s with increased vigour when they got to the rifle range. Whilst they wouldn't be the only soldiers carrying M1s whilst in combat - the radiomen, for example, would also have them - this two hour period had been reserved for beginning work on designations. As she loaded another magazine into her gun and adjusted her windage, Posey wondered vaguely how Luz and Perconte were getting on with learning how to use radios, or Skip and Malarkey with their mortars. Her wandering thoughts were short lived, however, as she focused all of her attention once more on being the best shot on the range; she knew she'd never be the best shot in the company, not with Shifty from First already having earned his sharpshooter badge, but she was determined to come out on top of Second. Purely out of pride. And a little bit out of spite against Guarnere, who was also a rifleman and also beat her at just about every other aspect of bootcamp - he even had her beat in running up Currahee now, much to her chagrin.

Posey found herself so exhausted that evening that she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, out like a light even hours before lights out. She came to again to a sky just beginning to brighten. The sounds of soft snoring and steady breathing filled the barracks whilst outside the birds began to chirp, a sharp contrast to the crickets that were still screeching. She sat up abruptly and found she hadn't even had the energy to change out of her ODs last night, or take off her jump boots. She swore under her breath once she realised she'd missed her usual opportunity to shower.

She knelt up on her bunk and took an experimental look out of the window. She couldn't see any sign of life about and the sky was still dark enough that she could guess they still had another couple of hours until the wake up call. She tried not to think too hard on it as she grabbed her shower things and slipped out of the barracks, making her way briskly across camp and only briefly acknowledging how much prettier everything was in the low lighting of dawn.

The first glimmers of daylight bathed everything in an almost ethereal glow, the light not yet strong enough to have become a sunrise. Everything appeared to be in low saturation - the grass less green, the sky less blue. The heat was less intense, too, not as sticky or humid as it was during the day but also not as chilly as it could sometimes get at night. At this time of day, from her small little corner of the earth, Posey thought that there was finally balance in the world. Of course, she knew it wouldn't last. It never did.

Her shower was uninterrupted, as was getting dressed, though when she re-emerged from the shower block she came across Johnny.

"God knows how you don't always wake up everyone else when you go on your little adventures," he began, voice even gruffer than usual with the lingering traces of sleep. "Why the fuck are you up at the crack of dawn?"

"I fell asleep too early, missed my usual window," she explained hastily. "It was either this or go without showering for another twenty-four hours, so I took the risk."

"Yeah," Johnny began, looking unimpressed, "well, next time, don't. You woke up Liebgott, whose complaining woke up Toye. I told 'em you were having stomach problems again."

"Shit, Johnny, thank you -!" she started to gush before Johnny cut her off.

"Don't thank me," he said, without a hint of the modesty, politeness, or general amicability which tended to accompany said words. "Just make sure I don't have to cover for your sorry ass again. I ain't gettin' kicked out of the Airborne because of you."

"Right," Posey replied quickly. "Sure. Of course." She went to head back to the barracks, taking the hint that the conversation was over where he was concerned, before she turned back to him suddenly. "Just so you know," she began tentatively, "if I ever do get caught, I won't tell anyone that you know. I'm not going to drag you down with me or anything."

"Right," Johnny agreed.

"And I really do appreciate your help. So thank you."

"Right."

"Bye," she offered, a shy smile on her lips.

"Go back to the barracks, Wells," Johnny told her. He turned his back to walk to the showers just in time that she only caught the very slightest hint of the smile on his lips.

"Right," she said, imitating him. She grinned when she heard him scoff and giggled to herself all the way back to the barracks.

As she tucked herself snugly back into bed in the hopes of catching a few final hours of sleep, Posey realised that suddenly all of his staring made sense; he hadn't been waiting for her to slip up, or analysing her every move to understand how she'd managed to keep her secret for so long. He'd been looking out for her. Keeping his distance so as not to draw attention, sure, but the moment she'd needed his help he'd made sure he was there to cover for her.

It was like coming home again, finding her best friend. Coming home again after a very, very long time away.


	14. Guts

Posey found herself waking up with a sense of deep peace settled over her more often than she would've expected. Indeed, she had already decided boot camp was going to be the most stressful experience of her life before she'd even been told where she'd be going - and that was saying something, because she'd been in London for a lot of the Blitz. Still, sometimes she found herself blinking awake and drowning in serenity, the early light of dawn mixed with the lingering traces of starlight assuring her she still had an extra few hours to sleep before the wake up call.

Then she'd remember where she was.

It was cruel to forget. How many times had she woken up in her bunk wondering what her mother would be making for breakfast or how long it'd be until her brother woke the entire household up by stomping down the stairs? How many times had the lingering haziness of sleep allowed her to revel in her dreams of civilian mundanity?

All those weeks in bootcamp and something inside of her was still fantasising about an alternate reality where there was no war, no Blitz, no evacuation, no nothing. She felt guilty to admit it, and refused to even admit it to herself, but something inside of her was also still fantasising that she had a father, even though it'd been well over two years since he'd left. And then, once she pushed this thought away, she felt embarrassed because, really, not having a father anymore was the absolute least of her worries.

Thankfully, Posey had managed to get her shower in at her usual time last night, which tended to be around two in the morning. The entire affair had gone as smoothly as it usually did, uninterrupted and, strangely, if not eerily, serene. She loved that she could shower so late and still wake up with dry hair; this was the only upside she had found to having short hair. She still missed her long, thick blonde locks sorely.

When the wake up call eventually came Posey was feeling a lot less nostalgic and sorry for herself, and a lot more determined to conquer the day. They only had a few more weeks at Camp Toccoa before they'd be moving onto another camp she'd forgotten the name of and she was intent on beating her Currahee personal best before they left. Maybe she'd even finally complete the obstacle course in a respectable time, too, though that goal seemed a little bit more unattainable - all of the rope climbing and throwing oneself over the tops of walls was a lot more difficult when you had little-to-no upper body strength and not much in the way of height, either. The simple truth of the matter was that the obstacle course was difficult for a man of 6'4", let alone a girl of 5'7", but that didn't stop her from bouncing around on the balls of her feet and narrowing her eyes at the first obstacle later that day, dead set on scaling the wall in one go.

"Lookin' determined, there, Duckie," Skip spoke up through a smile from beside her.

Posey shot him a glance and a offered a laugh before zeroing in on the wall once more. "I'm gonna conquer that stupid wall even if it kills me," she told him. "Today will be the day."

Skip patted her once on the back. "Well, then lets hope it doesn't kill you. I'd rather not slip on your blood whilst I'm trying to 'conquer' it myself."

Posey laughed. "I'll try my very best, just for you."

"Deal," Skip replied.

How the pair of them had managed to find themselves at the front of the queue, neither had any idea. Posey could only imagine her determination had pushed her forwards inadvertently, though she found she hardly minded the pressure of the rest of the eyes of Second Platoon on the back of her, all awaiting the starting whistle. This was between her and the wall. If she fell flat on her face she'd laugh it off - it wasn't like she hadn't already had to do so a hundred times before - but she wasn't going to do so without putting up her fair share of a fight first.

"Ready, Second Platoon," Sobel called out.

Posey's entire body tensed as she kept her eyes forward and narrowed on her foe.

When the whistle was blown, she ran for it.

Slow and steady may have won the race, but she needed momentum. After many attempts she knew she'd never make it up and over the wooden wall of doom without a running start. As soon as she was close enough she leapt for it and kicked wildly against the side to boost herself up. When her jump boots hit the grass on the other side of it, she couldn't help but let out a wild whoop; it was a blur, but she'd done it. _Finally._

She was falling behind Skip already and could hear that the next pair had been sent to start the course behind them but she hardly cared. She'd beaten the first obstacle on her first try. This was unprecedented. Unchartered territory. She just had to keep going and try to do the rest of the course just as well.

Posey had always had little trouble with the tyre exercise. Her feet were smaller than everyone else's and her legs were shorter. Accumulated, this meant she could hop in and out of the gaps in the tyres quickly and precisely. She was on the other side and suddenly right on Skip's heels in no time.

Army-crawling through pig guts under a web of ropes was made a lot more difficult than usual with the helmets they were now forced to wear, but this was something she'd been practising. _Hold your breath, keep your head down, just keep moving forwards_ , she recited to herself in her head. She'd always tripped herself up by trying to look ahead but yesterday she'd had a revelation; there was no need to look ahead, the only way she had to go was forwards.

After having to scale another wall, and then another but with a rope this time, then use a rope to swing over a particularly wide ditch, she had finished the course in her quickest time yet. Breathing heavily, sweating, and covered in fish guts, sure, but she'd managed it. Raw, unsaturated determination could do a lot for a person where physicality was concerned, it seemed, though deep down she knew she'd never have been able to do that at the beginning of bootcamp, no matter how determined she'd been.

As she reached the other side Skip offered her a high five, which she gladly reciprocated with a laugh. She was surprised by the pride which coursed through her at having finally beaten the course without Sobel screaming at her to start again at least three times per attempt. Maybe they'd make a paratrooper of her yet.

She giggled to herself to think it, and shrugged when Skip shot her a questioning look. She was saved by the arrival of Ramirez and Talbert, both of whom acknowledged her success with warm smiles and firm pats on the back.

"Nice one, Duckie," Tab said. He came to stand behind her and watched the men behind him work their way through the course.

"Finally beat that damn wall," she joked, watching Malarkey complain his way across the tires. "And it only took me - what? - two hundred attempts?"

"Better late than never," Tab replied with a laugh. He nudged her shoulder with his own and cheered as Liebgott jogged over to join them.

"I just got my fuckin' weekend pass revoked," Liebgott grumbled as he neared them.

"Why?" Posey asked. Tab only laughed.

"Threw pig guts at Luz," Liebgott replied. "I didn't realise Sobel was standing right fuckin' there."

"What did Luz say?" Tab asked with a grin as the man himself approached.

Liebgott smirked. "He threw 'em back."

"Can't believe I got my fuckin' weekend pass revoked," Luz remarked as he came to stand by them himself. "Fuckin' pig guts."

"I don't know how you can be bothered to go out after the Friday night marches anyway," Posey put in, chuckling to herself. The twelve mile marches in the pitch black every Friday night, in full pack as well, had been yet another evil added to their training after designations had gone out. After the first one, Posey had been more grateful than ever for her 745; she only had to carry her M1 as a weapon, whilst Luz had to carry a full radio strapped to his back along with it. Small victories.

"Yeah, well, you're a lightweight," Liebgott said.

Posey hit punched him gently in the ribs as she rolled her eyes.

As soon as the rest of Second Platoon had finished the course and joined them on the grass clearing, Sobel approached with dark eyes. "Pathetic," he started. He turned to Winters. "Lieutenant Winters, order Second Platoon to make their way back to barracks. I want them in full pack ready to run Currahee in the next fifteen minutes."

"Sir," Winters replied with a nod. When Sobel turned to walk away he turned to address the platoon, "Second Platoon, you have fifteen minutes to head back to the barracks, get into full pack, and gather at the bottom of Currahee."

"Yes, sir!" they chanted back at him. He gave them a nod and they dispersed.

Upon getting back to the barracks, they all hurried around their bunk spaces to get into full pack.

"Fuckin' Currahee," Perconte grumbled as he battled to get his ODs over his jump boots.

"Fuckin' Sobel," Guarnere corrected, already buttoning his up.

"How 'bout we all shut the fuck up and get our gear on," Johnny snapped from where he was putting his helmet on. "Last thing we need is to be late 'cause no one can keep their fuckin' mouths shut."

"Aw, come on, Johnny, he ain't here, you ain't gotta sing his praises," Perconte said, finally managing to get his ODs over his boots.

"Shut up and pull your trousers up, Perconte, alright?" Johnny replied with his signature scowl. "Jesus."

Posey covered her giggle with a forced cough.

Whilst the men continued to grumble, argue, and complain, Posey made quick work of getting her pack on. She strapped her M1 and placed her helmet on and was one of the first ready - she did have extensive experience in changing fast these days, after all.

"See, even Wells is ready before you," Johnny told Perconte when he noticed her standing by the door.

"What do you mean 'even Wells'?!" Posey exclaimed.

"Alright, lets go!" Johnny called out to the barracks. He didn't answer her question but he was smirking as he jogged past her to lead the way out the door.

"Fuckin' radio," Luz huffed out in the middle of their run up Currahee. He removed one hand from his gun to wipe the sweat off his brow and let out another huff in the process. "I ain't sweated so much in my life."

"Fuckin' _radio_?" Liebgott echoed with a scoff from Posey's other side. "Try carryin' a machine gun."

" _Half_ a machine gun," Posey corrected with a grin. "Christenson has the other half."

"Shut up, Duckie," Liebgott retorted. "With your fuckin' gun and that's it."

"Should've been better at shooting, Lieb," she quipped with a short laugh.

"Shoulda been a damn medic," Liebgott mustered out. "Ain't that right, Roe?"

"Sure," Roe replied. He didn't make to add anything else.

Luz scoffed. "You? A medic? God help us."

"Hey, why don't you make yourself useful for once, Luz?" Liebgott said. "Sing us a song."

"Don't need to ask me twice."

And thus began the classic means of moralisation when running Currahee.

"We pull upon the risers," Luz began.

Immediately, everyone joined in.

"We fall upon the grass.  
We never land upon our feet,  
We always hit our ass.  
Highty-tighty, Christ almighty,  
Who the hell are we?  
Zim-zam, goddamn, we're Airborne Infantry!"

The song played over and over again in Posey's head long after they'd finished running Currahee, and even into the night march. In the quiet of the night, the only sounds being the chirping of crickets and the rhythmic stomp of boots on gravel, at least the lyrics gave her something to focus on beyond how tired she was, and how thirsty, too. Curse Sobel for forbidding them to drink from their canteens. Her throat was dry and scratchy, her lips beginning to crack with how much dry dirt and sand was being kicked up by their feet on the path.

"I'm gonna say something," Bull spoke up suddenly from the row in front of her.

"To who?" Luz retorted from beside him.

Bull glanced down at Luz but didn't reply. Instead, he pitched his voice to call out, "Lieutenant Winters!"

"What is it?" Winters called back.

"Permission to speak, sir."

"Permission granted."

"Sir, we got nine companies, sir," Bull began, keeping his eyes set firmly forward on the man in front of him.

"We do," Winters replied simply.

"So how come we're the only company marching every Friday night, twelve miles, full pack, in the pitch dark?"

Posey glanced up from the man in front of her in an attempt to spot Winters and gauge his reaction to such a brazen statement.

"Why do you think, Private Randleman?" was all Winters said. He didn't turn around or make any sign that he was even mildly surprised or unhappy with the comment. Posey smiled to herself to think it. Winters really was one of them.

Bull didn't miss a beat with his response. "Lieutenant Sobel hates us, sir."

Posey giggled to herself but strained to hear what Winters would say to that.

Winters slowed down in his step until he was level with Bull's row. When he was, he spared the man a single glance before stating, "Lieutenant Sobel does not hate Easy Company, Private Randleman." He paused, making Posey wonder whether that was all he had to say. Winters, however, surprised her when he added, "He just hates you."

His voice was so matter-of-fact, so nonchalant, that Posey couldn't make to hide her laugh before it had already bubbled out of her. She wasn't alone, though; the comment received various scattered laughs from various men as Bull replied with an enthusiastic, "Thank you, sir!"

"He hates you too, Luz," someone added.

Posey giggled before Tab bumped her with a gentle elbow to her ribs. "He hates you too, Duckie."

Posey laughed. "Yeah, the feeling's mutual."


	15. Contraband

Posey wasn't afraid of heights. Or, at least, she hadn't thought she was. Standing atop the wooden jump tower and preparing for her first 'jump', however, - that was, using jump technique without the parachute or the aeroplane - she wasn't quite so sure. Though maybe it wasn't the height she was afraid of, perhaps she simply didn't trust herself to have the technique right.

With each man that took his jump, the line moved a few paces forwards, a shouted, "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand!" the audio accompaniment to his fall. The words repeated themselves over and over again in her head as she tried to focus and not let the nerves get to her. They'd received an hour long lecture and demonstration before they were allowed up on the jump tower but with every step forwards she feared she was forgetting more and more about what she was supposed to do.

"Stand in the door," Sobel ordered in the monotone he'd been using for the past hour. Posey looked up to find Popeye standing in the doorway of the tower. She'd be next.

"One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand!" Popeye chanted as he jumped, tucked, and rolled to the side to accommodate for the momentum.

"Stand in the door," Sobel repeated once Popeye was out of the way.

Posey didn't let herself think about it, she just jumped.

"One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand!"

"Congratulations. You just broke both of your arms, Private Wells," Sobel drawled once she'd rolled and jumped to her feet once more. "Do you want to be a paratrooper, private?"

Posey stood at attention as best she could in the uneven sand. "Yes, sir!"

"Then do better."

Posey gave him a nod and hurried to the back of the queue behind Popeye, feeling Sobel's eyes on her all the while. She only caught the end of his subsequent, "Stand in the door," in her haste to get out of his immediate line of sight. She breathed out a sigh of relief once she was back at the end of the line.

"You just gotta keep your arms tucked up," Popeye spoke up helpfully from in front of her, turning around to show her. "See?"

"Right," Posey replied, gnawing on her bottom lip. "Thanks, Popeye."

"Anytime," he replied.

Then it was back to watching the men jump and dreading her next attempt; for all the lecturer had ranted about proper jump technique to minimalise the damage when they landed, it still hurt to slam into the ground like that. She could only imagine what it would feel like once they had to do it for real.

Her second and third jumps went better, though at the end of it she was left feeling sore all over. Her bones felt as though they'd been ground to sand and her muscles as though they'd been driven over with a tractor. Needless to say, she was dreading actual jump training, though she tried to remind herself that at one point she'd dreaded the run up Currahee, and another the obstacle course. As training went on she found herself being repeatedly thrown in the deep end, and actually found that she was made of stiffer stuff than she'd initially assumed.

They all headed to the mess hall as soon as their first jump session was finished, and when they made their way to the barracks promptly afterwards they found chaos.

"What the fuck?!" Guarnere shouted the moment he was through the door. He moved further into the barracks to allow everyone else to see the mess as well.

"What the hell happened?!" Liebgott exclaimed once he'd seen it.

As soon as Posey made her way in all she seemed to be able to utter was, "Oh, fuck."

It appeared they'd had a surprise contraband check, and whoever had done it - likely Sobel - had made sure to leave no stone unturned - or, in this case, mattress.

"My letters!" cried Ed Tipper from behind her, barrelling past her towards the scatter of paper at the foot of his bunk.

Posey's eyes were set firmly on her pillow, which had been thrown onto the floor. She could only pray that it'd been thrown onto the floor in the process of her mattress being upturned and not with human hands. As she approached it she prayed that what she'd hidden there remained inside.

"Oh, thank God," she murmured the moment she'd crouched down and picked the pillow up. In true army-issue fashion, the pillow was thin and the pillow case even more so. She'd had to take increased precaution and hide her contraband not only inside the pillow case but inside the pillow - it hadn't even been terribly difficult to tear it open. But even so, nestled inside and entirely undisturbed was Teddy, her miniature childhood teddy bear stowaway. If anyone had found him, she knew she'd never hear the end of it.

Everything she'd had stowed in her footlocker lay haphazardly scattered about the floor but she knew her feminine cloth had gone unnoticed in her shower kit, for when she checked they'd not even bothered to open it. And, by some miracle, her underwear was still tucked into the pockets of her ODs. Perhaps she was better at hiding things than she thought. She didn't care about the other things - she was allowed a book, even if the message written inside was a bit strange, and they'd left her most recent letter to Mrs. Daniels on the floor beside her pillow.

The gloves Mrs. Daniels had sent her with had disappeared, however. But that was inconsequential now, overshadowed entirely by her relief that her dead-giveaway items hadn't been discovered. Posey didn't know who to thank for that stroke of luck but promised whichever God came to mind first that she'd repay them tenfold.

Posey got to work trying to repatriate everything that had been thrown astray immediately, starting with her overturned mattress. It was heavier than she'd anticipated but she managed to hoist it up and onto the bed frame with little fuss - something she owed entirely to bootcamp, she was sure, because there was no way she'd have been able to do that before.

Everything else was shoved haphazardly back into her footlocker before she started to remake her bed; regardless of who had made the mess, Sobel would be in there ready to chew them out if their bunks weren't made to perfection whenever he felt like it, and Posey had no desire to give him an excuse to tear her to shreds, even immune to his shouting as she had become.

Meanwhile, the barracks was filled with the shouting of angry men.

"God fucking damn it!"

"My shit's all everywhere!"

"Fuckin' Sobel. One of these days I'll shoot him, I tell ya."

"No you wont, Guarno," Toye spoke up in his usual blank tone. He didn't even glance up from where he, too, had begun to remake his bed.

"I will, Joe," Guarnere promised, his Philadelphian accent only growing thicker with his rage. "Throwin' all our shit everywhere, makin' us run Currahee three times a day in full fuckin' pack while he watches wearin' his fuckin' leather jacket. One 'a these days I'll fuckin' shoot him, I swear it."

"Anyone wanna bet?" Luz piped up with his signature grin.

Posey giggled and continued attempting to smooth all of the wrinkles out of her bedsheets. Then she paused a moment, and looked up from her work only to address the group at large, "Hey, did anyone lose anything?"

Even over the noise of complaining and the screeching of bed frames being moved against the floor, a few people turned around.

"Yeah," Skip replied. "White."

"What?"

"We lost White," Skip clarified, gesturing to the bunk beside his. "Apparently he stole something from mess."

"Shit," Luz muttered, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it promptly.

"Was he the only one?" Posey asked, mind racing with the 'what-if' scenarios where she was the one caught for a crime against the army. If they'd searched her shower kit and found her period cloth, or the pockets of her ODs and found her undergarments, she'd have been out of the Airborne quicker than she could say 'Currahee'. And maybe even worse than that, too; she didn't know what the punishment would be for pretending to be an American man purely to get to Britain and she didn't particularly want to find out.

"Yeah," Skip replied, and turned back to what he'd been doing.

Posey nodded but her face had fallen, all movement faltering. Suddenly, she didn't feel so relieved anymore. Up until this point the entire situation had been difficult, yes, and exhausting to be sure, but it hadn't ever really felt as high-stakes as she knew it actually was. At the back of her mind she'd always worried about being caught and kicked out, but what if she was found out and the punishment was worse than that? What if they didn't just send her back to Mrs. Daniels with a slapped wrist and few choice words? The US Army shot people for desertion, after all, and in some lights that may be considered a lesser crime than the one she was committing.

Feeling the pressure of eyes on her, Posey glanced up only to meet Johnny's gaze. She sent him a reassuring smile if only to get him to look away. As soon as he'd nodded back at her, she continued making her bed with renewed vigour, promising herself she'd be more careful from now on and take everything more seriously. Now more than ever she was determined to make it through basic undetected.

Posey forewent her shower that night. She'd managed to convince herself she hadn't done enough PT to warrant taking the risk but deep down she knew she was scared. This thing she'd been doing every night for the past six weeks suddenly seemed just as terrifying as the prospect of jumping out of a moving aeroplane. She felt like she was back at the very beginning again, unsure of how she was going to manage keeping her secret and making it through training simultaneously.

Above all, she felt alone.

Johnny knew and was keeping an eye on her, yes, but he was also keeping his distance.  
Whilst she considered him her best friend because of how much his kindness meant to her, she knew he didn't consider her his. And the others - well, she liked them, and she knew they liked her, but would that be the case if they found out she'd been lying to them? Would _they_ be willing to protect her even against the good of their own wellbeings?

So many questions and so few answers. She didn't know where to start. She didn't even want to, in all honesty. What good would it be to find pretty words to lull her into a false sense of security? She needed to be on her guard at all times. She could trust no one. Aside from Johnny, maybe. That was how it needed to be.

In the wake of the onslaught of fatalistic thoughts, the silence of the barracks as she tried to fall asleep became suffocating. The air was humid, as it always was, but now her body had decided it couldn't handle it. The snoring and steady breathing she always fell asleep to was now much, much too loud - almost deafening. The limited light from the window, whatever moonlight had managed to find its way through the thin glass of the windowpanes, was blinding. The sheets were scratchy and the mattress was hard and her hands were shaking and she was sweating too much. So much she was drowning.

Against her better judgement, she slipped out of the barracks anyway.

Making her way briskly around to the back of the barracks, Posey found a large tree and slumped against it, leaning against the side that faced away from the rest of camp. If anyone came out they'd know it was her but at least they wouldn't immediately know she was crying, and it wasn't a crime to leave the barracks to cry in the middle of the night. At least, she hoped it wasn't.

Posey took a breath and forced herself to swallow her sobs. She tried to exhale the desire, the overwhelming need, to weep loudly and desperately into the humid night air. But that didn't stop the tears from slipping from her eyes and tracking their way down her cheeks, dancing gracefully in the pale moonlight.

Never in her life had she felt more alone. She was the ultimate outsider - a girl parading around as a boy, destined not to fit anywhere. Even though they never said anything, the men knew something was up with her - her facial features were too soft, her frame too thin, her voice too high no matter how avidly she tried to deepen it - and whether the few women on base had their suspicions or otherwise, she was forced to let them believe she was just one of the men. A pariah to both groups, Posey found herself without a single person to trust, and whilst many of the faces she trained alongside were friendly she wasn't sure whether they could actually be considered friends. They didn't truly _know_ her, after all. But did anyone? Did she?

Not for the first time, Posey wondered how everything had turned so terribly upside down. She should've been at home in London, sat lounging in the living room with her mother with warm mugs filled to the brim with tea and listening closely to the radio for news on the RAF, secretly wondering whether they'd ever receive another letter from John. Instead, she sat on itchy grass under the cover of a tree, gazing up into a sky devoid of stars whilst covered in tears she didn't bother to wipe away. Utterly alone. If she thought she'd known loneliness before she'd been wrong. At least on the ship over to the States she'd been in the company of other evacuees. Here, on a military base in Georgia surrounded by paratrooper hopefuls, she found herself wondering how bad it could possibly be to simply quit and find another way back home. Would the army really shoot a girl, and a British one at that?

_Probably_ , she thought bitterly, and let out a sobbed gasp of laughter at her situation.

She ran a hand over her hair, out of habit more than anything else, and sucked a sharp breath in through her nose. She hadn't cut all of her hair off to quit.

No, she decided, she was going home as an American paratrooper even if it killed her. And one day she'd tell her family how she'd managed it - once they'd forgiven her for putting herself in so much danger simply to come back home - and she'd laugh. And yes, she'd remember the night she spent curled in on herself below a tree in the grass, listening to the chirping of crickets and the brushing of leaves and wishing she was absolutely anywhere else, but it would seem funny then - trivial and childish and so, so long ago. In the grand scheme of things her loneliness would be inconsequential. She knew home would be worth it.


	16. Spaghetti

The rain reminded Posey of home. She hadn't even been sure whether Georgia, in all of its stifling heat, was able to produce rain, but apparently it was. A whole lot of it, too, by the looks of how it was coming down.

When the men of Second Platoon had awoken to the sounds of heavy rain slamming against the window, they'd all cheered.

"Looks like we're in lectures all day, folks," Tab had declared with pure glee written all over his face. "Manoeuvres, positioning, tactics, map-reading, you name it. We've got ourselves a whole day without Currahee."

The cheers that erupted as soon as he'd finished his announcement were almost deafening in the early morning, drowning out the sound of the heavy rain altogether. Posey couldn't help but cheer herself, a huge grin splitting her face. Lessons she could do. She'd been to boarding school for years and had to endure private tutors over the school holidays - between that and the rain, so reminiscent of London, she felt right at home. She could scarcely wipe the beaming smile off of her face for a second, even when having to endure perhaps the most boring lecture she'd ever experienced in her entire life. How this lieutenant, not one she was familiar with, managed to make battle tactics sound so dull was beyond her, but he'd managed it. She fought desperately to keep her eyes from wandering to the windows as he droned on and on in his monotone voice.

At one point, when she hadn't been so successful, she'd met Guarnere's eye. Just for fun, she stuck her tongue out at him. He rolled his eyes and turned away immediately, but it made her giggle. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the confused glance Roe shot at her from the seat on her right but she paid it no mind. Now her eyes were back on the board and she reminded herself of her promise to remain inconspicuous, which meant paying attention in lectures no matter how boring they were and definitely did not mean pulling faces at Guarnere.

By the time lunch rolled around, Second Platoon, once so ecstatic about their day of lectures, were utterly demoralised.

"If I gotta sit through one more goddamn lecture I'm gonna rip my eyes out," Perconte told her and Luz as they made their way to the mess hall.

"How many more things can they lecture us on, anyway?" Posey wondered by way of reply. "We've already done battle tactics, positions, formations, and map-reading. I don't know what else there is to teach."

"Me neither, Duckie," Luz put in through a sigh, "but I'm sure they'll find somethin'. They'll never have us sittin' around doing nothing, that's for damn sure."

"Yeah, and don't we know it," Perconte agreed.

"Nah, one more lecture and we've got the afternoon off," Tab butted into the conversation. "Winters just told us."

"Really?" Posey furrowed her brows.

Tab grinned, throwing a casual arm over her shoulders. "NCO privileges," he explained with a smirk. "We get told first."

Posey shrugged his arm off but she laughed. "I wonder how they went about picking the NCOs," she began, a cheeky grin already making its way onto her face. "I bet they chose those among us already in possession of the biggest egos and decided to inflate them as a sort of social experiment."

"Ha ha," Talbert drawled. "You're just jealous."

"Extremely," she snarked back, laughing along with him.

When they set foot in the mess hall, spirits brightened immediately.

"Hey, guys!" Perconte called out to the rest of Second Platoon behind them. "They're serving spaghetti!"

"No fuckin' way!" Liebgott cried.

"I'm so happy I could cry," Posey said, only half joking.

"I think I already am," added Perconte.

Posey fell in line behind Luz and in front of Perconte and made haste in grabbing her plate, cutlery, and a slice of bread. As soon as the pasta and, subsequently, the sauce, had been slopped onto her plate she couldn't help but laugh deliriously. She only barely noticed Winters overseeing the activity in the kitchen.

"Real food!" she declared to no one in particular, simply unable to keep her jubilation in.

She followed Luz to their usual table and squeezed in between him and Perconte, barely acknowledging those filtering in around her as she dug in immediately. She felt as though she'd been starving up until this very moment, as if this was the first time they were being given food for the entire time they'd been at Toccoa. It wasn't the best spaghetti she'd ever tasted in her life - it didn't hold a candle to the stuff the chef at her house had used to serve - but she was happier and readier to eat it than she'd ever been to eat anything in her life.

"This stuff is orange," Dittrich, sat across from Perconte, spoke up. He was holding a clump of spaghetti hanging from his fork up in front of his eyes to inspect it, wearing an expression of vague disgust. "Spaghetti ain't supposed to be orange."

"This ain't spaghetti," Perconte replied without missing a beat. "This is army noodles with ketchup."

"You ain't gotta eat it," Guarnere commented as he slid into the open seat beside Perconte.

Perconte looked to him, aghast. "Oh, come on, Gonorrhoea, as a fellow Italian you should know that calling this crap spaghetti is a mortal sin."

"Tastes alright to me," Posey mumbled.

All the while Hoobler, from the table behind them, was reaching an arm between Perconte and Guarnere in an attempt to steal Perco's plate. "Don't want it? I'll have it."

"No, no, no, I'm eatin' here!" Perconte exclaimed, elbowing the intruding arm out of the way.

"Hey, get outta here!" Guarnere said at the same time, batting Hoobler away as well.

Posey laughed. "That's what you get for being picky."

Perconte rolled his eyes but a tell-tale chuckle gave him away. "Well, you ain't Italian, Duckie, I wouldn't expect you to understand."

The shrill cry of a whistle interrupted their banter. A voice which sounded remarkably like nails on a chalkboard burst out, "Orders changed! Get up!" whilst stomping into the mess hall.

"Uh oh," Posey muttered around a mouth full of spaghetti as they all jumped up to stand at attention.

"Lectures have been cancelled. Easy Company is running up Currahee." No one moved until he barked, "Move! Move!"

Everyone began tripping over themselves in their haste to get out of the door quicker, pushing at each other in the hopes of speeding up the process. All the while, from behind them, Sobel called out a taunting, "Three miles up, three miles down! Hi-yo, silver! Lets go, lets go!"

Posey's stomach was full of dread and spaghetti as she followed the rest of her platoon back to their barracks and stripped off her ODs to leave her only in her PT gear. They jogged as a group to the path at the bottom of Currahee and lined up between First and Third immediately.

Luz turned to Posey, seeming to either be blissfully unaware of the spaghetti sauce smeared all around his mouth, or simply unbothered by it. "First one to throw up takes the other's next latrine duty?" he suggested. He grinned and the orange spread across his cheeks like a sunrise.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Luz," Posey drawled with a smile of her own, "But I accept."

Sobel's voice cut through the chatter once again. "Three miles up, three miles down, Easy Company! Lets go, lets go!"

As soon as she began to run up the mountain, Posey felt the spaghetti sloshing around in her stomach. Not once in her life up to this point had she ever regretted eating so much but now she knew she'd do a good job of making it to the top without passing out, let alone throwing up.

She had to focus on her breathing, deep breaths in and out even when her lungs screamed at her to breathe faster to accommodate her increased heartrate, and attempted to ignore the nausea crawling its way up her throat. She was not going to be doing Luz's latrine duty, especially after he'd suggested it in the first place.

Men all around her seemed to begin vomiting at the same time. If it wasn't someone in the row in front of her it was someone in the row behind. The sheer noise of the entire affair - of the boots on hard ground, of the gagging, of the throwing up, and of Sobel's shouting - seemed to surround her as though she'd been submerged in water. It was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on not vomiting when all she seemed to hear was people doing just that, or if not, Sobel shouting about it.

But after Sobel had seemed to satisfy himself with the relentless jeers about the vomit, he moved on to taunting.

"You're a washout, Private Hoobler!" he belted, coming up beside the man in question as he choked out some spaghetti and spat it on the ground. "You should pack up those ears and go home!"

He accelerated to sneer at Smokey from First Platoon. "Looks like Gordon's done! Aren't you, Gordon?! You finished?! You do not deserve to get your wings!"

Just when she thought she'd escaped, Sobel slowed himself down so he ended up back with Second. "You're looking tired, Private Wells. Just say the word and you're finished. No one expects you to make it anyway."

Posey felt her blood boil but kept her eyes firmly forwards. Just because he'd said that, she knew she was _going_ to make it, not merely up Currahee but all the way back home. And she'd do it with shiny silver jump wings pinned to her uniform, a souvenir for her desperation and, above all, her resilience.

"Private Randleman, you look tired," Sobel continued once he'd gotten no reaction, addressing Bull in the row in front of her. "There's an ambulance waiting for you at the bottom of the hill. It could all be over right now - no more pain, no more Currahee, no more Captain Sobel!"

Captain? Posey hadn't even known he'd been promoted.

Luz had clearly had enough of Sobel's demoralisation and decided to raise morale the best way he knew how. "We pull upon the risers," he began to sing.

Everyone joined in directly, just as they always did.

"We fall upon the grass.  
We never land upon our feet,  
We always hit our ass.  
Highty-tighty, Christ almighty,  
Who the hell are we?  
Zim-zam, goddamn,   
We're Airborne Infantry!"

"I'm gonna be sick," Posey lamented as soon as they'd finished singing.

"No you ain't," Liebgott spoke up sternly from beside her. "You're fine."

"I'm fine," she repeated, nodding.

"I'm not," Luz choked out, and threw up immediately after.

"Victory!" Posey cheered. She clapped a hand over her mouth as she felt the bile slithering up her throat.

"Don't throw up!" Liebgott ordered. "I don't want your puke anywhere near me!"

Posey couldn't reply, all of her energy having to be focused on breathing through her nose and continuing to put one foot in front of the other to keep up with rest of her platoon. After a few moments she lowered her hand again, feeling more sick than ever. She couldn't hold it anymore. 

She threw up all over her PT shirt, and then threw up again at the sight of it.

"I'm sorry!" she squeaked as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and then wiped that off on her shirt. "I couldn't help it!"

"Fuck's sake, Duckie," Liebgott grumbled, but he didn't look too angry.

"You alright?" Roe called out from Lieb's other side.

"I think so," she called back. "I feel a bit better now."

"I bet you do," Liebgott commented, his disgust plain on his face.

Posey's time in making it to the top was abysmal compared to her usual time, but at least Sobel wasn't up there shouting about how pitiful their times were. They'd lost him somewhere around the halfway mark after Luz had started singing. Posey could only hope their refusal to bow down to his sneering and the blatant slap in the face that was their sing-song had infuriated him enough to send him back to his fancy officers' quarters. She'd hated that man almost ever since she'd first laid eyes on him but never more than right now, covered in her own vomit and trying desperately not to trip as she began to run the three miles back down to the bottom of Mount Currahee.

She caught up with Luz again at the bottom, breathing heavily and holding her stomach, which was now aching something fierce. "Looking forward to doing my latrine duty?" she asked as she came to stand beside him, mustering a grin in spite of her ailing.

"Shut up," Luz replied, but he laughed a little bit. "I can't believe I lost."

"Well, it was mere seconds before I did, so don't be too cut up about it," Posey replied, chuckling. "It was sheer luck."

"I'll get you next time," Luz promised through a grin.

Posey laughed tiredly. "You're on."


	17. Bunks

In spite of everything, Posey had to admit that she was sad to say goodbye to Camp Toccoa, and especially to Mount Currahee. They'd been through a lot together, she thought, and she'd certainly miss running alongside Luz, Lieb, and Roe everyday. It was all quite bittersweet, in an incredibly strange way.

Posey savoured the walk to the showers in the middle of the night, filled with less anxiety and more nostalgia as she knew it'd be the last time. As she washed she worried whether it might be more difficult to do all of this at Fort Benning - would the shower block be as close, her bunk as conveniently positioned, the door to the barracks as quiet when she tried to slip out? All of that new place uncertainty bubbled up in her stomach as she stood under the water.

Yes, she thought she'd miss Camp Toccoa, where it'd all began. Part of her couldn't believe she'd made it through the first part of basic, which was a thought that made her feel emotional in and of itself. Because of the fact that she had, she knew she'd look back on Toccoa fondly, despite everything they'd had to endure there.

She lay awake most of the night, reminiscing on all that had transpired since she'd arrived at Toccoa and thinking about how different everything looked now that she'd lived there for a while. The barracks looked almost remarkably different even though they weren't much changed. They looked like home now.

She giggled silently to herself, her blanket pulled up to her nose, as she recalled the first words she'd said to any of the men. "So this is home?" or something like that, if she remembered correctly. It had been a joke at the time, because it had looked so extremely uninviting and because, for her, it was simply a stop along the way before she could actually get home. It meant more to her now. She'd miss these barracks.

When they eventually arrived at Fort Benning, Posey found that her nostalgia and sentimentality of the night before had been a bit of a waste of time. Aside from the fact that the bunks were bunkbeds, the barracks were almost identical.

She quickly threw her bag on the bottom bunk of the bed closest to the door and laughed when Luz frowned. "I wanted that one," he said.

Posey shrugged. "Better luck next time." She patted him on the shoulder once conspiratorially.

"You had the bunk closest to the door at Toccoa," he argued, clearly unwilling to back down just yet.

"You'd already chosen your bunk before I got there!" Posey protested through a disbelieving laugh. "Besides, you love being the centre of attention much too much to be hidden away in a corner."

Luz shook his head. "Why don't you take the top and I'll take the bottom and we can share it. There, a win-win situation. Call it a compromise."

And a terrible idea, where she was concerned; sneaking out of the barracks was one thing, but having to climb down a bunk bed which held a sleeping George Luz on the bottom was entirely another.

"No, I need to be on the bottom," she replied decisively. Then she amended, "You can take the top, though, if you want."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you 'need' to be on the bottom?" Luz challenged.

Posey searched her mind as quickly as she was able for a feasible excuse. "I... uh... I'm afraid of heights." She wanted to punch herself in the face the moment the words were out of her mouth.

From the bunk opposite them, where he'd evidently been listening in, Toye said, "You're training to be a fucking paratrooper."

Her knight in shining armour came in the form of a sharp glare and snappy words, "I'm taking top bunk. Luz, take a hike."

"But -"

"Choose another one!"

No one in the entire company seemed to wield the same amount of power as an angry Johnny Martin. Posey couldn't have been more grateful to have him on her side, or more astonished.

"Thank you," she murmured to him as he flung his bag on the bunk on top of hers.

"Yeah, don't mention it," he muttered back, and climbed up to top bunk immediately.

"How long have we got till dinner?" she asked the barracks at large, hoping for an answer in the realm of 'an hour'.

"About forty-five minutes," Roe told her from the bunk beside hers.

"Lovely," she declared with a clap of her hands and a grin. "I'm gonna take a look around. Anyone coming?"

Much to her surprise, Roe nodded. "Yeah, I will." Noticing her raised eyebrows and slightly agape mouth, he gave a small laugh. "Probably a good idea to find out where the med bay is before trainin' starts," he explained with an air of bashfulness.

Posey nodded. "I see." She watched as he finished organising his stuff into his footlocker - something she might have been able to do had she not been engaged in conversation - and smiled when he finished. "Shall we go then?"

In response, Roe nodded and led the way out of the barracks.

For a while they simply followed the path, passing through an area set aside for the barracks of the various companies. Men from said other companies dwindled around across camp, scattered about like marbles on a child's bedroom floor, but none of them made any move to talk or call out to them, so they didn't do it either.

Posey took note of where the bathrooms for Easy were, and the shower block, which was conveniently located right beside them. It was a longer walk than it had been from the barracks at Toccoa to the showers but it could've been a lot worse. She had yet to take stock of how loud the door to the barracks was, however; she'd have to do that before night fell to give herself time to work out a possible way around it.

It was after they'd passed the shower block that Roe broke their comfortable silence. "Can I ask you somethin'?" he wondered. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his ODs despite how humid it was outside, perhaps only to give them something to do.

Posey grinned. "Depends," she said.

Roe laughed and then shook his head, suddenly becoming serious. "You're a girl," he said.

Posey's face must have given away her perplexment for when she moved to speak she had to close her mouth first. The only thing she could manage to choke out was, "That's not a question."

"But you are," Roe replied, watching her both curiously and carefully. "Right?" he tacked onto the end, an attempt to be polite, perhaps.

"I -" Posey began, and faltered. How the fuck had he worked it out?

Eventually, she mustered out, "What makes you think that?"

He laughed. "I don't talk much but I listen." He shrugged. "I watch."

"What do you mean?"

"Your accent," he began. He looked ahead of him again wearing a small, wry smile. "It drops sometimes. I'd guess you're British, too."

"Fuck," she whispered.

He chuckled and went on, "And the words you say. Like 'shall' or 'lovely' or so on." He shrugged almost shyly. "I guess it made me wonder. Then when I was really lookin' it all made sense."

Posey furrowed her brows and he must have noticed, for he explained bashfully, "You don't look much like a man."

At this, Posey laughed. "Um, thank you, I suppose."

"So I'm right then?" Roe asked, smiling at her finally. "You're definitely a girl but you're British too, aren't you?"

Posey sighed and finally dropped the accent, first making sure no one was eavesdropping even though they were out in the midst of open space by now. "Yes, you're right." She shook her head, unable to contain a grin that she didn't at all know why she was wearing. "I was an evacuee," she began to explain, fiddling with her hands in front of her as she strolled. "I was in London for a bit of the Blitz before they sent me over to America but -" Her words faltered as she worked to steel herself. "But it's been a couple of years, and my brother's in the RAF and my mum's still at risk of being bombed in London and I can't wait around for the war to end any longer because they may not be there by the time I'm allowed to go back."

In the wake of her words there was a charged silence. It had been strange, she realised, to speak in her natural accent for once. Something about her Boston accent - which she'd clearly thought had been better than it actually was - had become natural in its overuse. She wondered whether, by the end of all this, she'd have a hybrid of an accent. She laughed to think it and then realised where she'd left off speaking.

She rushed to add, "I'm not going to fight in any wars, so don't worry. I just need to get back to England and then I'll be gone. I won't be putting anyone in any danger in combat or anything."

Roe shook his head. "I wasn't worryin' about that." He scoffed and looked over at her. "I wasn't even thinkin' that. Is that what you think? That you'd put us in danger?"

Posey shrugged and looked away; for all Roe seemed to avoid eye contact, when he wanted to look his eyes could be incredibly piercing.

In a small voice, she replied, "I'm smaller than everyone else and I'm not the best at PT. I do well enough to get by without washing out but that's about as well as I do. We both know I'm awful at hand to hand."

"But you're good with a gun."

Posey smiled, flattered. "Thanks." After a beat, she added, "I think to some extent everyone probably worries about letting everyone else down once in combat. I just think that the natural reaction to finding out someone you're training with is a girl would probably be to assume that it'd be dangerous to have me in combat, both for myself and for everyone else." She laughed with a regretful sort of irony. "Whether or not I believe that's true myself, I just thought I'd reassure you. I'm really just trying to get home."

"Ain't there any other ways to do that?" Roe teased.

Posey grinned at the sudden humour. "No!" she protested immediately, then amended, "Well, yes, probably." He laughed and she shot him a teasing glare. "Troops are being prioritised, though. Fastest way across the ocean is on a troopship. There are too many hospitals on home soil for rehabilitation to have risked being a nurse and I couldn't think of anything else that would get me to England double lively."

In a single question, Roe gave voice to what was perhaps her biggest fear. "What if we get sent to the Pacific?"

"What if, indeed," she muttered to herself. Then she forced a smile and glanced left at Roe, who was already watching her. "Well," she began levelly, "then I'm fucked, aren't I?"

"Yeah," Roe agreed, laughing. "Yeah, I guess you are."

"Keep your fingers crossed for me," she said as they turned and began to make their way back to the barracks.

Roe nodded. "I will. I promise."

"Can you promise me something else?"

She came to a stop before they neared any of the buildings in camp, to avoid being overheard. Roe noticed almost immediately, observant as he apparently was, and nodded with furrowed brows.

"Please don't tell anyone," she said, the words riding a withdrawn exhale. "I don't know what the punishment would be and I'd really rather not find out."

"I won't," Roe vowed.

"Thank you."

When they continued walking, he asked, "Does anyone else know?"

"Johnny," she replied simply.

"Makes sense."

"Yeah."

"What's your real name?"

Posey bit onto her bottom lip and shrugged. "Johnny said not to tell him - plausible deniability I think, or something like that. So maybe it'd be best if I didn't tell you either. Just in case."

"Right."

"Also, just so you know, I wouldn't sell you out or anything," she added, voice low now that they were heading back into camp. She painted her fake accent over it again. "If I get caught I won't tell anyone that you know."

Roe shot her a small smile and a nod. "I know you won't."

"Thank you for being a friend," she said once the barracks came back into sight again.

Roe chuckled lightly. "What are 'buddies' for?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we make it out of Toccoa just before the new year! happy new year, all - thank you for the reads, the kudos, the comments, the lot. i hope 2021 brings you all you hope it will!! <3


	18. Angel

Christmas didn't feel like Christmas this year. This was less in the way of 'growing up makes Christmas less magical' and more in the way of 'it's boiling hot in Georgia and, aside from barrack room chats, no one's acknowledging it's even December at all'. Even last year, the first Christmas Posey had ever spent away from home, had felt more Christmassy than this. She didn't know whether to believe it was because she was having to spend all of her time on a military base (still no weekend passes for them!) or whether America had just finally woken up to the fact that there was a war on and decided that Christmas was cancelled as a result. Either way, it didn't feel like Christmas, even as they all began to pack up their things ready to get on trains and head home for a few days.

For Posey, home obviously meant Boston, back to Mrs. Daniels' small but comfortable home tucked away on the outskirts, but she found herself excited nonetheless. Last year she'd been nothing but doom and gloom about having to spend Christmas there but this year she couldn't be more excited. How things could change within such a short amount of time.

"Oh, man, I can't _wait_ to go home," Malarkey said, practically vibrating with excitement as he shoved things haphazardly into his duffle bag. "I am gonna eat so much food they'll have to make it illegal after."

Posey suppressed a sigh. It _was_ illegal back home in England.

"I'm just excited to get to sleep in a real bed," Skip replied, practically giddy himself where he sat on the top bunk of the same set as Malarkey.

"What about sweet, sweet Faye Tanner, Skip?" Luz piped up. Posey couldn't see him and didn't even bother to try, but she could hear the grin in his voice. "Not excited to see her?"

"Shut it, Luz," Skip replied, pretending to lunge at him. "I can't wait to see her."

"I can't wait to hear all about it," Luz said.

Posey giggled. "One day you'll find a girl of your own and you won't have to live vicariously through Skip, Luz," she said. "One very, very distant day."

"I don't see you walkin' round with any dames on your arms," Luz shot back.

"You're right," Posey relented. Then she grinned. "Tragic life for the short among us, isn't it?"

"I'm not fuckin' short!" Luz exclaimed.

Posey laughed loudly. "If you're not then neither am I! You're only an inch taller than me, if that!"

"You're delusional, Duckie," Luz dismissed her. She could imagine him physically batting her away with a hand gesture, too, though he couldn't see her either.

"You're optimistic," she replied, giggling to herself at the outrage she'd been able to induce with a single comment.

"Fuck, I can't wait to get outta here just so I can hear myself think for a few days," Guarnere grumbled loudly from a few bunks along. "You two are like fuckin' children!"

"You'd know!" Posey called back.

When Luz shouted out an 'Ay!' she laughed loudly.

"Wells, you sound like a girl when you laugh," Guarnere replied, clearly disgruntled.

Posey pretended to pout where she was hanging upside down off of the side of her bed. "I'm wounded, Gonorrhoea, truly," she said with as much mock hurt as she could manage. "That was absolutely lethal. No point in having you go to the rifle range anymore, just talk to the Germans and they'll drop dead."

"Shut up," Guarnere huffed.

Posey caught Roe's eye from the bunk next to her and shot him a wink. In response he simply rolled his eyes and returned to folding up whatever he was taking with him to go home.

"Don't feel like Christmas this year, does it?" Perconte asked from the bottom of his bunk. All across the barracks people gave voice to their agreement. "Can't believe I'm goin' home," he added as an afterthought.

"Yeah, well, it's only for a few days," Johnny replied from the bunk above Posey's. "Don't get too excited."

"Can't _wait_ to get back to Philly," Guarnere said, giving Johnny's comment little notice. "I miss my ma's cookin' so much I've been dreamin' about it."

"So _that's_ why you were making those noises in the middle of the night!" Luz commented.

"Fuck off, Luz."

Luz laughed loudly. "I was wondering whether I should feel uncomfortable or not," he went on, barely able to choke the words out through his laughter at his own joke. "Felt like I was intrudin' on something private."

"Shut up, Luz," Guarnere grumbled once more. "Had enough of your yappin'."

"You goin' back to Rhode Island for Christmas, Luz?" Toye asked nonchalantly from the bunk above Guarnere's.

"Yeah."

"Good," Toye said.

"Why's that good?"

"'Cause I'm staying here."

"Aw, come on, Joe," Luz crooned, ever the showman. "You know you'll miss me. No one else gives as good a wake up call as George Luz and you know it!"

"Shut up, Luz. It'll be nice to get some peace and quiet around here." As an afterthought, Toye added, "Hey, Duckie."

"Hm?"

"You goin' back to Boston for Christmas?"

"Yes," Posey replied cautiously.

"Good. Then we really will get some peace and quiet."

"I'm not even that loud," Posey insisted with a pout.

"Sure," Lieb put in from the other side of the room, "and I'm not the sexiest guy in Second Platoon."

"You're right," Tab said. "You're not."

When morning came the entirety of Second Platoon, whether they were going home for Christmas or not, were up bright and early. Excitement was bubbling through the air, the enthusiasm of those getting ready to see their families again too infectious to not bring a grin to everyone's faces. Posey felt a twinge of sorrow for those among them who wouldn't be going home - for some the journey was too long to justify a mere four day visit, for others they simply didn't have the money - but her relief at being able to go back to Mrs. Daniels and be herself again for a little while overshadowed everything else. For four whole days there would be no sneaking out to shower in the middle of the night, no hiding undergarments in mattresses and pockets, no fake deep voice, and no accent. She could be herself again. A girl. _Josephine_. Not quite Posey but it'd do.

She boarded the train to Boston positively giddy, a sharp contrast to how she'd felt on the train to Georgia.

She slept through most of it, again making sure to take advantage of being a 'man' whilst it lasted. As promised, she found Mrs. Daniels waiting for her on the platform once she arrived.

To her credit, Mrs. Daniels didn't say or exclaim anything that might've given her away, but the hug she'd given her had been tight and warm; that had said more than any words could have anyway.

The cold of Boston was a sharp contrast to the heat and humidity of Georgia, but everything did feel a whole lot more Christmassy on this side of the country. As they made their way back home Posey gazed with thinly-veiled awe at shops heartily decorated in Christmas decorations and dustings of snow on rooftops. It reminded her quite suddenly of London at Christmas but instead of making her sad, the thought made her happy. She felt quite at home, she realised, even though they hadn't reached the house yet.

As soon as the front door to Mrs. Daniels' house, decorated generously in bows and lights and wreaths, shut behind the pair of them, the elderly woman ushered Posey into a chair at the kitchen table and bustled around the kitchen to get her something to eat and drink.

"Oh, I really am so glad to have you back, dear," she gushed all the while, the sentence accompanied by the scuffing of shoes against a hardwood floor and the slamming of cupboard doors.

Posey couldn't help but beam as she looked around at the familiar kitchen with new eyes. It felt like home, in a way. "I'm glad to be back," she said, and meant it. "I didn't realise how much I'd miss being here, _living_ here." She laughed a little bit as she said, "The barracks are nothing in comparison to my room upstairs."

Mrs. Daniels laughed. "I'm sure." She set a plate of cookies in front of Posey - cold, now, but still homemade - along with a cup of tea. "I've washed your sheets and gotten everything ready for you. Other than that everything's just as you left it."

Posey could have sworn she felt her heart grow three sizes. "Thank you," she all but whispered. Her voice had gotten stuck in her throat.

As she ate the cookies she took the time to gaze around the kitchen she'd spent the previous night dreaming about. The fading light from the window was golden, the edges of the glass stained by frost. Between the busy messiness of the countertops and Mrs. Daniels' rambling, Posey couldn't remember a time she'd ever been desperate to leave.

Then she remembered home, her real home, and felt immensely guilty. She had to remember why she'd done all of this in the first place. And, certainly, home comforts were nice, but this wasn't _home_. Home was back in London with her mother and her brother and she'd do well to remember it.

Mrs. Daniels' voice cut cleanly through the fog in her mind. "Josephine, dear?"

Posey's eyes shot up from the table in front of her where she realised she'd been staring blankly, unresponsive. "Hm?"

"Are you alright?"

Posey forced a smile and a nod. "Yes. I'm brilliant, actually." She shrugged, the tight smile still pulling at her lips. "Tired, I suppose. It's rather exhausting pretending to be a man everyday."

Mrs. Daniels laughed. "I'm sure." She hesitated from her place on the other side of the kitchen table, watching Posey closely. After a moment, she asked, "Would you like to talk about it or take this time to just have everything be normal?"

Posey contemplated her response. After a short pause, she answered, "I'd like to pretend everything's normal." She hoped Mrs. Daniels wouldn't be upset by this answer. "There's not much I can tell you anyway, not really anything beyond what I've said in my letters. And you already know that Johnny and Roe know."

"And they're good friends to you?" the elderly woman asked, her eyebrows furrowed together and her eyes filled with genuine concern. "They won't tell anyone?"

"No," Posey assured her, confident in her answer. "They won't tell. And the both of them have been very good friends to me. Johnny always looks out for me and gets me out of trouble when I need it, and Roe's always there for me to talk to. He makes sure I know that. He's a good listener, too." Posey smiled to herself as she took a sip of her tea before continuing, "I've been very lucky, thinking about it, to have the pair of them on my side. I've a lot of friends in bootcamp but those two are my closest."

"Your best friends?"

Posey laughed and shrugged. "I suppose."

Mrs. Daniels smiled. "I'm glad you have friends there to look out for you. It makes me feel better to know you're not entirely alone." Then she shook her head. "But enough about that! I thought we decided everything is normal whilst you're back."

"Right," Posey replied through a laugh. "Sorry."

"I've put up the tree - actually, David from next door put up the tree, but it's up and that's what matters - but I left it bare so we could decorate it together. What do you say? It is Christmas Eve, after all."

Posey giggled and nodded enthusiastically, finishing her tea in a single gulp. "I would absolutely love that," she said, beaming right back at Mrs. Daniels.

"Good."

As they set about decorating the Christmas tree in the living room, Posey made sure to savour the moment more than she ever had before. Times like this were precious, she realised, and even though she wasn't home she knew she'd never get to do this with Mrs. Daniels again - at least, as long as everything went according to plan.

The pair of them stood back to admire their work before Mrs. Daniels grabbed the angel and handed it to Posey, asking her to do the honours. She had to stand on a chair to do so, but she did, and as she came to stand beside the woman who'd taken her in so readily and treated her like one of her own, she felt her smile beginning to ache with how wide it was.

She thought it was rather a shame that she'd never appreciated her life for what it was before, but at least she could appreciate it now.


	19. Cookies

"I come bearing gifts!" Posey declared as she stepped back into the barracks of Second Platoon. Her four days of Christmas break had sped by, and whilst she had been immensely sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Daniels and her lovely, cosy home, she had to admit she'd missed her friends too much to be too down about having to return to Fort Benning.

"You do?" Malarkey asked, hopping to his feet immediately.

Posey nodded, a grin on her face as she placed her bag on her bunk and dug through it for a moment before pulling out a large round tin which was supposed to contain sewing materials. Instead, when she removed the lid and held the container out for everyone to see with a flourish, the men of Second Platoon found something that suited them a lot better.

"Cookies!" they seemed to all cry simultaneously.

"My mom made them," she explained as she took two and set the tin on the floor, leaving the rest to the vultures. She'd had her fair share back at the house and on the train but they were simply too good to resist.

Her mum had, obviously, not actually made them, but Mrs. Daniels had insisted she take them back to camp and hand them out like a mother sending her child off to school on their birthday with sweets. She smiled as she sat on her bunk and listened to the chaos of men fighting over biscuits, recalling fondly how adamantly the elderly woman had pushed the tin into her hands.

"No, I can't take these!" Posey had protested, holding out two hands in an attempt to push the tin away.

"Why not?" Mrs. Daniels had challenged.

"I don't know - if they saw me carrying them they'd probably take them from me at the door!"

"So put them in your bag."

"Mrs. Daniels, how much money..." Posey trailed off, eyes gazing at the tin dreamily even though its navy blue lid was firmly shut.

When she glanced back up again, she found Mrs. Daniels' eyes had softened. "The rationing isn't so bad here as it is at home, dear. They didn't cost me nearly as much as you think, I promise. Flour and sugar and eggs are all still easy to come by."

"Even still..." She was an elderly woman who lived alone when Posey wasn't there and didn't have a job. Posey's mind was now less concerned with bringing the cookies with her than what it had costed the woman to make them.

"They give me extra money to look after you, dear, don't forget," Mrs. Daniels replied with a sudden edge of emotion to her voice. She took a short pause and managed to push back whatever sadness had overcome her. "Since I'm not actually looking after you very often anymore I get a whole lot more money than I'd have otherwise. I promise, you don't have to worry."

Posey nodded, finally relenting. "Okay."

"Share them with those two best friends of yours," Mrs. Daniels went on, smiling now, "as a thank you for looking after you. What were their names? Joseph and -"

"No, _I'm_ Joseph," Posey cut the woman off, laughing. "Their names are Johnny and Eugene."

"Right. Well then share them with Johnny and Eugene."

As soon as the latter of them was through the door to the barracks, Posey did.

"Roe!" she called out to him.

He turned to look at her with the same furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips as he always did when someone called out to him, seemingly ever-surprised people noticed him at all.

Posey grinned and waved him over, digging through her bag all the while. "My mom made cookies," she explained, and shot him a look to impart that it hadn't actually been her mother. "I knew the others would have destroyed them in minutes so I kept a couple back for you." She finally found the smaller tin Mrs. Daniels had given her for the occasion and held it out to him with a smile. "Merry Christmas!"

Roe chuckled and gave her perhaps the biggest smile she'd ever seen from him. He looked genuinely touched. "Thank you." He looked down at the small tin in his hands and grinned before looking back up. "Tell your 'mom' thanks for me as well when you write."

Posey giggled, nodding. "I will."

Johnny was a little bit later than the others in getting back, though perhaps only by an hour or two. Posey found it rather bizarre to recall that she'd been visiting the woman taking care of her as an evacuee whilst Johnny had been visiting his _wife_ and couldn't help but laugh at the strange friendship they'd formed, entirely accidentally. The moment he walked through the barracks door, his face resting in a way that wasn't particularly unpleasant but not particularly approachable either, Posey rushed to retrieve the third and final tin of cookies. Who knew one woman could have so many sewing tins?

"Johnny!" she called out to him, even though his bunk was on top of hers.

"Wells," he replied, offering a nod but little else.

He threw his luggage onto the top bunk but before he could climb up Posey brandished the tin in front of him, leaping to her feet in the process. "My mom made cookies and I kept some back for you," she explained in a hurry, a shy smile on her lips. "You don't have to eat them but I wanted to give you something as a sort of thank you and this is all I have."

Johnny glanced from her face to the tin in her hands and back up again. Posey was floored to find an actual, honest-to-God smile on his face. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. It seemed cookies could bring out the best in people.

"Uh," Johnny began, taking the tin from her carefully, "thanks, Wells. That was, uh, nice of you."

Posey grinned. "I hope you like them. Merry Christmas."

"Ain't Christmas anymore," Johnny said. When he looked back up at her he chuckled under his breath, perhaps finding her innocent, owl-like eyes amusing as they gazed at him. "Merry Christmas," he relented, before climbing up onto top bunk.

The company didn't have to recommence training until the following day so they had the rest of the day to slouch around and do nothing. Of course, 'slouching around' when you were in Second Platoon, Easy Company meant something entirely different than to the average person. That was to say, the moment George Luz picked up a pillow and launched it through the air with the war cry, "Pillow fight!" entirely spontaneously, everyone else was automatically ready and rearing to go.

Immensely grateful she hadn't bothered to put anything away yet and as such her pillow remained contraband-free, Posey picked up her pillow and smacked it at the nearest victim: Roe, naturally.

Roe whirled around in shock but grinned when she laughed loudly. He picked up his own pillow directly.

"No!" she cried over the noise of all of the shrieking in the barracks, but Roe was merciless. He whacked her with his pillow not once but three times, laughing as he did so.

"You're a savage!" Posey shouted, laughing as she hit him back. Then someone hit her over the head and she turned and slammed her pillow into Luz's stomach. "And you're a menace!"

Each of the members of Second Platoon fought their way valiantly and tirelessly across the barracks, dodging elbows and knees and pillows left, right, and centre. Posey once found herself engaged in a particularly aggressive pillow fight with Guarnere, both of them desperate to win, before Johnny had whacked Guarnere over the head from behind with so much enthusiasm that Guarnere had stumbled back.

"Yes!" Posey cheered and shared a grin with her saviour.

By the end of the whole affair the barracks were covered in the feathers that had once occupied a great many pillows. The feathers weren't difficult to collect, however, because whilst the pillows had been filled with them before, 'filled' was a word that had to be used very loosely in the context. The pillows had always been remarkably thin, practically useless other than for hiding contraband, and as a result there wasn't too overly many feathers to retrieve. They seemed to have finally found a single advantage to the army's terrible furniture.

By the time dinner rolled around, everyone seemed to have forgotten all about Christmas. The conversation topic on everyone's lips was jump training. As soon as the new year rolled in they'd be set to jump out of actual aeroplanes, not off of jump towers or simply swinging around in harnesses. They still had a few final preparatory practise jumps to do before then but when January arrived they were going into the new year swinging. Posey didn't know whether to feel more nervous, because the idea of jumping out of an aeroplane was downright terrifying, or excited, because as soon as they completed five jumps they'd have their jump wings and be onto the next camp for field training. Whilst field training sounded like a lot of fun, however, what this really meant was she'd be a paratrooper. She'd be going _home_. As long as they were bound for Europe. She didn't want to think about the alternative so she forced herself not to.

"Five jumps and that's _it_ , gentleman!" Skip was declaring loudly to their table in the mess hall. "Five jumps and we're US Army paratroopers!"

"Still gotta do field trainin', though," Perconte pointed out, "and I don't wanna be a downer but I ain't holdin' out hope that Sobel's gonna be a better tactician than he is a guy."

"Aw, come on, Perco!" Luz exclaimed with a dismissive wave of his hand. "That's what NCOs are for, right guys?"

The NCOs all answered with their agreement.

"You just gotta hope you get put in someone's squad with half a braincell."

"Do any of them have that many?" Posey wondered, and laughed when Tab, sat beside her, nudged her with his elbow.

"Still jealous you're a measly private, Duckie?" Tab taunted with a grin.

"Hey," Posey replied, "the lower the rank, the less responsibility. Being a private suits me just fine, thank you very much."

"Now that's an opinion I can get behind!" Skinny Sisk put in from across the table.

Posey threw her head back as she laughed. "Right?!" she exclaimed, turning her eyes back to him and giggling as he nodded.

"You two are unbelievable," Floyd commented.

Posey shrugged. "The higher up the chain you are, the more you have to interact with Sobel, and I, for one, would like to do as little of that as possible."

"Wouldn't everyone?" Skip added sarcastically, earning a round of laughter from the table.

They spent the rest of dinner and, indeed, the rest of the evening, sharing stories from their short Christmas breaks and discussing in almost absurd detail what they'd eaten. Posey found that her heart didn't seem to ache so much when they talked about family now, for she'd had someone to spend her Christmas with and it had been a very happy and warm Christmas indeed.

With the earning of jump wings so close she could almost taste it and the end of training a tiny silhouette lingering on the edge of the horizon as opposed to a fantastical idea she could do nothing but dream of, Posey felt that home was much closer than she could've guessed. And spending the new year with the men of Easy Company, who she'd actually come to be rather fond of, wasn't something to complain too vigorously about either. Everything seemed to be finally falling into place.


	20. Planes

"Do we feel like we're ready to be army paratroopers?!"

"Yes, sergeant!"

"I hope so," replied the jump sergeant, nodding as he paced in front of the gathered members of Second Platoon. "This'll be the first of five exits from a C-47 aircraft scheduled for today," he went on, taking care to look each of them in the eye as he paced back and forth across the grass before them.

They were all sat on the ground, squinting into the sunshine in order to see the jump sergeant. Posey sat cross legged, pulling the grass out from underneath her in handfuls. She kept her eyes trained on the jump sergeant whenever he was talking, and whenever he wasn't, she turned her eyes to the sky; in a little while she'd be up there, in an aeroplane for the first time in her life, and she'd be getting ready to jump out of it. Her heart gave a leap into her throat and she had to swallow hard to push it back down again.

"There'll be a lot of men jumping from the sky today," the jump sergeant declared, his tone informative and matter of fact. He continued to nod along with all of his words as though that would prove to the paratrooper hopefuls crouched in the grass before him that what he said was true. "Hopefully, under deployed canopies," he added. No one laughed. "You'll be jumping from one thousand feet AGL in sticks of twelve jumpers per aircraft. All you have to do is remember what you were taught and I guarantee you gravity will take care of the rest."

Posey nodded to herself, dropping the clump of grass and dirt in her hands only to grab ahold of another and wrench it out of the ground.

"And, gentlemen," the jump sergeant started up again, speaking slowly and clearly this time so they all understood the gravitas of his words, "rest assured, any refusals in the aircraft or at the door and I guarantee you, you _will_ be out of the Airborne."

The words sent a shiver down Posey's spine. She would not be washing out over this. If she could vomit her way up Currahee, she could jump out of an aeroplane. She would have to. Where she was concerned, she had little in the way of choice in the matter.

"Alright, Duckie?" Luz asked from where he was sat beside her, his eyes on the grass and dirt peeking out from between her clenched fists.

Posey followed his gaze and promptly dropped the grass, wiping off her hands on the trousers of her ODs. "Alright," she agreed with a nod. "You?"

"Alright."

"Alright."

"Helmets on," the jump sergeant ordered. He came to stand back in front of them with a clipboard in his hands. "The first stick of twelve will be: Christenson, Guarnere, Martin, More, Muck, Perconte, Ramirez, Randleman, Roe, Sisk, Wells, and Wynn." He levelled them all with a final weighty gaze before nodding to the other observing jump sergeants. He turned on his heel. Over his shoulder, he called, "Those of you whose names I just called, follow me."

The engine of the plane was deafeningly loud. It was a hell of a lot louder than Posey had expected it to be, much like the sound of a gun firing had been when she'd done that for the first time. In her limited experience thus far, combat seemed like it was an awful lot louder than she'd ever imagined - cacophonous in comparison to the war films her father had always watched. She wondered whether there was ever any quiet associated with war; as a civilian, the bombs had been loud, as a soldier, the guns, and as a paratrooper, the aeroplanes. She supposed it made sense, though. War, of course, was the opposite of peace.

"Get ready!" the jump sergeant belted over the noise.

Posey's head shot up from where she'd been sat staring at her fiddling fingers. Her eyes were as wide as disks as she fumbled for a minute with all of the khaki ropes and belts hanging off of her. Finally, she located her hook and held it up to show the instructor along with everyone else.

"Stand up!" he shouted, raising his hands up to indicate what he meant just in case they couldn't hear him.

Posey rose unsteadily to her feet at the same time as everyone else, feeling her stomach spinning with nerves.

"Hook up!"

She secured her hook onto the wire above them. Then she unhooked it and hooked it again, just to be sure it was really closed.

"Check equipment!" the jump sergeant ordered, patting his chest all the while.

Posey patted Popeye down where he was stood in front of her and felt Johnny do the same to her from behind. She thought it was rather funny, and incredibly apt, that Johnny had ended up behind her. He quite literally was always watching her back for her.

"Sound off for equipment check!"

The voices of the rest of the eleven began to ring out immediately.

"Twelve okay!"

"Eleven okay!"

"Ten okay!"

"Nine okay!"

"Eight okay!" Posey called, patting Popeye in front of her to prompt him to call out his own number.

Their sound off ended with Guarnere at the front. "One okay!"

"Stand in the door!"

She couldn't think about it. She couldn't allow herself to think about it. As she stepped out of the door into thin air, she cleared her mind of everything except the words she belted out as she fell, "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand!"

Her parachute opened above her and she slowed almost instantly. All of a sudden the terrible whine of the wind faded to a hum. It reminded her starkly and suddenly of the whine, crash, and subsequent stillness of the bombs in the Blitz. She had reached the stillness, the calm, the quiet. She grabbed onto her risers and attempted to steer as best as she could. She was in control.

Even with the parachute, the ground seemed to approach at an alarming rate. Watching it though she was, the air was knocked out of her lungs when she crashed into it and rolled as she'd been trained to do. She'd been right: it did feel different to land when you'd jumped from an aeroplane than it did to jump from a tower, but at least she'd remembered her training.

"One down, four to go!" Guarnere shouted from somewhere nearby, already running with his parachute bundled up in his arms.

"Shit," Posey muttered and rolled back over so she could collect hers as well.

She worked quickly to fold it up like she'd been taught, knowing that time was not on her side with how windy it was outside and how small she was. One strong gust and if her parachute wasn't packed up she'd be flying away with it.

As soon as she had it bundled up she began to jog to the meeting point with everyone else, delirious and grinning. She couldn't believe she'd actually done it - and it hadn't even been that bad!

"That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought," Posey declared once she'd caught up with the others.

"I can't wait to do it again," Skinny said by way of reply.

"Yeah, well, there's plenty more where that came from," Johnny put in dryly as he approached. "We got another four yet."

"Another four or another four thousand, at least it wasn't so bad!" Posey exclaimed, unable to wipe the grin off of her face.

"Jumpin's the easy part," Guarnere said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's the stuff on the ground you gotta worry about."

"And you know all about that, do you?" Posey challenged, still laughing a little bit. "Do tell us what you've seen, oh great, experienced combat veteran."

"You ever shut that big mouth of yours?"

"You ever come up with any better responses to when I talk?"

"Head back to the assembly area," the jump sergeant called from a few yards away. "The next stick are about to head up."

"I bet Malark's shittin' himself," Muck commented to no one in particular as they began to make their way back.

As they did, even from such a distance, they heard the engine of another C-47 begin to roar. She'd only heard it once but Posey thought she'd remember and recognise that sound for the rest of her life, just like she did with each German bomber that had flown over London. Each plane seemed to have its own unique growl, and the Germans' were deeper, rawer, uglier than anything she'd ever heard. In contrast, the American C-47 was lighter but louder, argumentative and unapologetic. She liked it a whole lot better than the others she'd heard before.

"Luz, too, probably," Perconte added, chuckling. "Man, I wish I could see his face right now."

"You should wish you could've seen your own, Perco," Johnny cut in, his smirk audible. "For a second there I thought you were gonna crouch in a ball and scream."

"Screw you, Johnny, alright? I didn't see you lookin' any better," Perconte retorted.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "That's 'cause you weren't lookin' anywhere 'cept your shakin' hands."

"Do you reckon anyone'll refuse?" Posey wondered, scuffing the toes of her jump boots through the grass as she walked.

Skinny shrugged. "Not sure."

"I was hopin' you would, Wells," Guarnere said.

Posey mimicked him to herself before replying, "I was hoping _you_ would." She didn't bother turning around to look at him.

When they finally got back to the assembly point the second stick of twelve had already jumped and the third were just getting ready. The remaining men were all but vibrating with adrenaline and anxiety, desperate to know anything of what it was like.

"Horrible," Johnny deadpanned in response, the first of any of them to reply. "You're gonna hate it."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah."

"Fuck."

No one made any move to correct him and instead revelled in the increased buzzing of nerves Johnny's words had caused. Posey caught Guarnere cackling to himself as one of the jump sergeants called out for the next stick to go and they scrambled to their feet looking like deer caught in headlights.

"Hey! Don't shit yourselves!" Guarnere called after them.

"No promises!" Talbert called back over his shoulder.

Posey couldn't prevent her giggle from bubbling out.

Guarnere shot her a look. "You laugh like a girl, Wells."

Posey shrugged.

"You look like one too."

"Does that mean you're attracted to me?" she wondered with mock-innocence.

"Fuck off."

Posey laughed. "I'll try."

"First stick, get ready to go again," the jump sergeant who'd initially addressed them called out. "Make sure you've got all your equipment and follow me."

Even though she knew what to expect this time, Posey still felt mildly sick. She thought she probably still would by the time she did her fifth. But she had a spring in her step this time, the majority of her adrenaline stemming from excitement as opposed to dread. She'd done it once and this time she knew for certain she could do it, so all she had to do was do it again.

"Get ready! Stand up! Hook up! Check equipment! Sound off for equipment check!"

"Eight okay!"

"Stand in the door! Go!"

The howl of the wind felt like it was coming from inside her brain, the chill of it stinging her cheeks and ears. When the parachute opened above her she worked to manoeuvre it as best as she could. She didn't hit the ground as hard this time and bundled the parachute up much quicker than she had before.

They all completed the process another three times until they gathered at the assembly point once more, beaming smiles on their faces as they chatted animatedly to each other.

A single voice was able to cut through the noise with a single word. "Congratulations!" Posey could feel her cheeks beginning to ache with all the smiling. "You are now certified US Army paratroopers. You'll receive your jump wings later tonight."

The jump sergeant shot them all a final polite smile and a nod before turning on his heel and walking away.

There was a moment of stillness among the new-paratroopers.

Posey stared down at the grass in front of her, jaw hanging slightly agape. "I did it," she murmured under her breath. Slowly, her smile began to wrench her mouth wider. "I did it!"

"US Army paratroopers!" someone cheered, his voice almost as loud as the jump sergeant's had been in the plane.

"Party at 2200 in the bar on base, who's in?!"

Everyone was. Obviously.

Posey couldn't believe she'd really done it. She was one step closer to going home. And, for now, she was a paratrooper.


	21. Wings

When Colonel Sink pinned Posey's jump wings on her chest, right over her heart, she felt a warmth of pride spread across her body, blossoming out from the tiny metal badge. Once again she couldn't help but feel delirious in the knowledge that she'd done it. She'd gotten her jump wings. What had once seemed a mammoth task had been conquered. She was closer to home than she had been since being evacuated - or she felt it, at least.

"Congratulations, private," the colonel told her in his deep Southern drawl. He offered her a nod and a polite smile before moving on to the next private stood at attention in the long line of paratroopers getting their jump wings today. The energy in the room was electric, the air seeming to vibrate with the enthusiasm oozing off of its occupants.

Posey absolutely _could not wait_ to tell Mrs. Daniels. She'd only written her a letter the previous day but this seemed like something notable enough to warrant a letter of its own.

Whilst her dress uniform was hot, scratchy, and heavy, Posey felt as light as a feather as she followed the men of her platoon to the bar on base as soon as the ceremony had finished. Men were cheering into the darkness, as night was still falling incredibly prematurely even now, patting each other firmly on backs and flinging their arms around shoulders. As they all bundled in, Posey thought they looked drunk already, but then again she thought she probably looked much the same to an outsider.

She was squashed in between Skip and Malarkey, two arms slung across her shoulders and two mouths shouting gibberish directly into her ears. She didn't altogether mind too much, though; she felt warm and accepted and welcome. She felt _seen_. True, they may not have known who she really was, but who was she really, anyway? Did the person she'd been before bootcamp even exist anymore? Where was the line between who she was pretending to be and who she really was?

At that moment, as the three of them turned sideways in order to get through the door without untangling themselves from each other, she found it difficult to believe they didn't know who she was deep down. They'd all seen each other at their worst. Whether they knew she was a girl or not was irrelevant. They knew her, she decided, and she knew them. And perhaps that was all that friendship was, really; knowing, seeing, accepting. She felt immensely grateful to the entirety of her new group of friends for having offered her all three of those privileges as readily as she'd offered them back.

For the entirety of Easy Company, it seemed, it was beers all around. As she followed a now-independent Malarkey and Skip to a table already full-to-bursting with Second Platoon men, she even caught sight of a few of the officers milling about. Lieutenant Winters, of course, did not have a beer - there was a rumour going around, likely started by either Luz or Guarnere, that he was a Quaker, which apparently meant he didn't drink alcohol at all ever - but Lieutenant Nixon, formerly of First Platoon and now an intelligence officer, did. He was stood right beside Winters with a beer of his own, though he was also drinking out of a flask every now and then.

Posey found herself pushed into a chair between the two who had flanked her all night, and once the three of them were seated she found out why.

"Duckie," began Malarkey with a seriousness he very rarely possessed, "we've been training you up for this for a long time now."

Skip nodded when Posey turned to look at him. "It's time for the student to become the teacher."

Posey looked between the two mischief-makers and knew just from looking at their matching grins. "I'm telling you," she began, laughing to herself, "I won't be able to beat you in a drinking competition! I'm flattered you think I would, but I won't!"

"Aw, come on, Duckie," Skip crooned, ruffling her hair. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I think you're forgetting a pretty important detail."

"Yeah?" she asked with considerable scepticism. "What's that?"

"Malarkey's terrible at drinking competitions," Skip replied enthusiastically.

"Am not!" Malarkey protested immediately.

"Yes you are, Don, and don't even try and deny it. You'll embarrass yourself."

"So, what d'ya say?" Malarkey asked Posey, ignoring Skip's comment entirely.

She felt the pressure of both eyes on her even as she gazed down into the gold of her drink, gnawing on her bottom lip as she considered the pros and cons. Eventually, she looked up and asked, "What do I get if I win?"

"That's the spirit!" Skip declared. "Malark? What does he get?"

"Loser has to buy the winner their next drink," Malarkey suggested.

Posey nodded. "Deal."

"Ready?"

"You bet."

"Alright," Skip began, leaning over the table on his forearms to get the both of them firmly in his sights. "Three, two, one. Go!"

The whole affair was over in twenty seconds at most, but it felt as though the room had fallen into dead silence as she worked to down her pint in one.

The noise of the room crashed back over her in a single, raucous wave as she slammed her glass back down on the table. Skip cheered from beside her.

"And the duck finally wins!"

"No way!" Posey exclaimed immediately, sharing in Skip's grin.

"That wasn't fair," Malarkey said as soon as he'd finished his own drink, but he was smiling too. "So the student _does_ become the teacher."

"I will fill my new position with the upmost admiration and reverence for my predecessors. Thank you and goodnight."

"Amen to that," Skip said, punctuating his sentence by finishing off the rest of his beer in one, perhaps to put both Posey and Malarkey to shame. "Now lets get another drink!"

Hours seemed to pass like minutes as gradually the room became a hazy blur of warm light and khaki uniforms. At one point Posey knew Colonel Sink had come in to address them all, though she only remembered because of how difficult she'd found it to jump to attention in her state with such little notice. Admittedly, she couldn't recall a word of what he'd said to them even if her life had depended on it.

She didn't engage in any more drinking competitions, but she spectated on many, and even judged a few. Guarnere was infuriatingly good at them and seemed determined to show off this skill to every member of the company, Second Platoon or otherwise, even though they'd already seen it a million times before.

"It's like, we know, you can drink fast, blah, blah, blah. Am I supposed to be impressed?" Posey drunkenly rambled to Skinny after observing one just such display of a supposed exertion of dominance.

"Right," Skinny said, nodding along. "At the end of the day, it's just swallowing stuff."

"Exactly," Posey agreed, swaying slightly where she leaned against a high table pushed against one of the support beams.

"I bet I could drink milk twice as fast as he could," Skinny added, his words just as slurred as Posey's, if not more so. "What's he gonna do then?"

"I think you should challenge him," Posey said without a hint of irony or comedy in her voice. "I bet they'd sell you milk if you asked."

"You think?" Skinny asked, equally as serious.

"Totally."

"What are you two plotting over here?" Tab entered the conversation with a smirk. He had a fresh beer in his hand and seemed to not be even half as intoxicated as the two people stood before him.

"Skinny's gonna beat Guarnere in a drinking competition," Posey explained.

Tab blinked once when she'd uttered the words before they seemed to process. Perhaps it had simply taken him that long to understand what she'd said. "Really?" He asked, turning to the man in question. "You think you could?"

"Yeah. We're gonna drink milk," Skinny said with feeling.

Tab burst out laughing immediately. "No, you're not."

"What?! Why?!" Posey protested around a pout.

Tab rolled his eyes. "You stick that lip out any further, birds'll shit on it." Posey stuck her tongue out at him but stopped pouting. "You two need to be separated to different tables, surrounded by far less drunk company, and given two big glasses of water to drink. How's that sound?"

"And then I'll beat him with the milk," Skinny said, speaking slowly and nodding blearily.

"Sure, buddy," Tab replied, barely concealing his grin. "Whatever you say."

Posey allowed herself to be led away as soon as Tab had gotten Skinny situated. She sat down at what may have been the table she'd first sat at with Skip and Malarkey, though she didn't really remember. After waiting patiently whilst Tab got a glass of water for her, she sipped at it once as he disappeared again before tuning in to the conversation taking place beside her.

"I'm tellin' ya, they'll want us in Europe," Toye was saying. "We're gonna be fightin' Germans."

"Nah, they already got soldiers in Europe, Joe," Guarnere objected loudly. "We're goin' to the Pacific, guaranteed."

As was the way with a great many things, Posey hoped desperately that Guarnere was wrong.

Her attention was drawn away by Luz sliding into the seat opposite her.

"Duckie!" he exclaimed with a grin. "What you drinkin'?"

"Water," she replied, taking a sip as though to prove it. "Tab got it for me."

"That's real nice of him and all but, great party like this, you should be drinkin' beer!"

"I _have_ been drinking beer!" she protested. "A bit too much of it, really. I feel quite sick."

Luz only laughed. "You know, I've never met anyone who goes as British as you do when they're drunk."

_Fuck._

"It's 'cause of your mom, right? She's British?"

"Yeah."

"Where from?"

"London."

"Bet she's glad she moved stateside then, right?"

Posey grimaced and took a large gulp of water to steel herself. She nodded before she'd swallowed, cheeks puffed out with the large volume of liquid they were holding.

"So you're hopin' we're going to Europe as well, right?"

She swallowed her water and nodded. "I really hope we're not sent to the Pacific."

Luz's eyebrows furrowed. "What about Pearl Harbour? You don't wanna get some revenge for that?"

Posey shrugged and watched her fingers trace around the rim of her glass. "I don't know anyone in Pearl Harbour." She glanced up at Luz briefly to offer half a smile. "But I know people in London."

Luz nodded his understanding. He took a moment to look around at the pandemonium of the bar before turning back to face her all of a sudden. This time he leant over his forearms on the table to speak to her, his glass clutched tightly in one hand.

"To invading Europe," he declared, raising his glass in the air but keeping his eyes locked on hers.

Posey laughed and nodded, trying to focus her eyes as she picked up her own glass and raised it skyward. "To invading Europe," she echoed, and they clinked their glasses together before taking a gulp.

To invading Europe, indeed. Or at least, to returning to it. Posey wasn't sure she'd be doing much invading but if there was a continent on Earth that needed just that at the moment, it was the one she'd grown up in.

Posey looked around the room with new eyes then, as Luz turned to engage in a conversation with Malarkey and she was left to herself for a moment. These were the men who, hopefully, would be helping to free Europe and win the war. These were the men who were coming to help put an end to it all. More than ever before, her heart filled with warmth as she gazed at the faces of the men she now called friends. They would be making one hell of a sacrifice in going to war, but she hoped they knew it'd be a worthwhile one. She hoped they knew their cause was worthy.


	22. Improvising

It was just Posey's luck to have been put in Bill Guarnere's squad. There was only one possible explanation for it and that was that the universe had it out for her. Either that or Sobel knew they didn't get along and did it to punish her. Either way that's what it was: punishment. She could barely stand being in the same room as Guarnere and now she had to take orders from him? It was enough to make her gag.

"I'd rather stick forks in my eyes than do what he says," Posey complained to Roe once she'd found out.

Roe rolled his eyes, slumping into the chair beside her in the mess hall. "Too bad," he said, tearing off a piece of bread and taking a bite.

"Where's my sympathy, Roe?" she whined, turning to face him fully where she sat.

Roe laughed. "Where's mine? Don't forget they lumped me in with the both of ya."

"Sucks to be you," Posey replied, chuckling to herself as she turned back to the table once more. "At least it'll only be in training," she added quietly, staring down into her water for a moment and imagining the Thames.

Roe cleared his throat and, when she glanced up, she found his eyes on her. He was a difficult man to read but Posey knew from the furrow of his brows that whatever he was about to say wouldn't be anything comforting or reassuring.

"Have you heard from your family yet?" he asked, voice low to prevent eavesdroppers.

Posey avoided his eyes and began to cut up her food. "No."

"Nothin'?" Roe asked.

She shook her head.

"Not even from your mother?"

"No, Roe," Posey snapped. She sighed and ran a hand down her face, careful to keep her eyes trained on her food to avoid having to look at him. "Nothing," she added, her voice softer now.

"What if -"

She cut him off immediately. "Don't say it."

"You gotta have a plan, Wells. Just in case."

Posey dropped her cutlery and rested her elbows on the table, letting her head fall into her hands. She screwed her eyes shut and nodded, her lips pulled into a thin line. "I know."

"So what if they're already gone, then?"

"I don't know."

"Would you go find your father?"

"No," Posey answered immediately. She lifted her head from her hands to show Roe the certainty on her face and shook her head quickly. "No. As far as both my father and I are concerned I don't have one." She sighed and dropped her head back into her hands again. "He wouldn't want me, anyway."

"Wells..."

"He wouldn't," she said with finality. "And that's not me being dramatic, or stubborn, or whatever you think it is. It's the truth. He decided he didn't want to be a father anymore. My best bet would be..." She shrugged. "Going back to Mrs. Daniels, I suppose."

"How are you gonna get back across the ocean, though?"

"I don't know."

"You know, when you leave, the army'll probably try to get you for desertion."

Posey laughed entirely without humour. When she looked up at Roe her despair was written all over her face. "I know."

Roe nodded and tapped her once on the shoulder before turning to his food. "Just -" he began, and faltered for a moment, perhaps searching for the right words. "Just think about everythin' before we leave. Make sure you know what you're doin' just in case..."

"Yeah," Posey replied, continuing to cut up her food. "I will."

The rest of their time at Fort Benning seemed to fly by and before she even knew it, Posey found herself having to secure herself yet another bunk in yet another set of identical barracks.

"I'm by the door!" she called out as soon as Second Platoon made their way into their barracks at Camp Mackall.

"Yeah, we know!" Luz called back.

Posey laughed and flung her bag onto her new bunk, flying out of the door directly so she could locate everything without having to do it for the first time in the pitch darkness.

The barracks at Camp Mackall were the closest to the shower block yet and Posey let out a quiet cheer when she found them. Upon re-entry back into the barracks she noted that the door didn't squeak on its hinges when opened or closed. She thought she'd get along just fine here, a professional in her own specific subterfuge as she now was.

They were thrown straight into lectures and classes on combat technique the following day, preparing them for their inter-platoon competition at the end of the week. They would have to learn about fixed positions and moving as a unit in order to 'shoot out' an entire platoon at one time. The whole thing was incredibly exciting, even with the monotony of classroom lectures dulling down enthusiasm; it had been explained to them in explicit detail that it was not to be a free for all, and in fact would have to be carefully coordinated and executed largely in silence in order to assure victory. With the emphasis placed on stealth for this particular manoeuvre, Posey thought she'd likely be just fine.

The night before their first big combat readiness test, the barracks were buzzing with anticipation. Even though they wouldn't actually be firing anything, not even blanks, machine gunners and riflemen alike worked to clean their guns. Squad leaders conferred with each other, as if there were any stones left unturned in their extensive lectures, and mortarmen worked around their mortars to make sure they were synchronised.

When all of that was finished came the ribbing of the other platoons.

"We'll get Third easy," Christensen declared from where he was lounging back on his bunk, his half of the machine gun he shared with Liebgott sufficiently scrubbed. "They won't stand a chance."

"First might be hard, though," Tab commented wisely. "Shifty's got eyes like a hawk."

"But he won't actually be shooting anyone," Posey argued.

"But he'll see us!"

"Aw, come on, Tab! Have some faith in us, would ya?" Luz drawled. "We're clearly the superior platoon."

"As long as we don't get stuck with fuckin' Sobel leading us," Guarnere reminded them. "He's gotta have one of the platoons and if he chooses us we're fucked."

"He'll go with Third, I bet," Perconte said. "They need the most help."

"He'll wanna impress Sink though," Liebgott objected. "So he'll choose us."

"We've got Winters, anyway, so even if he does we'll be alright," Bull reasoned from his bunk on the other side of the barracks.

Johnny huffed. "Winters answers to Sobel. He's the one calling the shots whether we like it or not."

"We are so fucked," Luz lamented and threw himself dramatically back on his bed.

Agreement on this matter was unanimous.

The barracks fell into a thoughtful silence before, after a few moments, it was broken by Popeye.

"Maybe," he began, and then hesitated for a moment as the eyes of the room turned upon him. "Maybe," he tried again, "Sobel won't be as bad a combat leader as we think. He might surprise us."

"Pop, do you really believe that?" Liebgott challenged.

Popeye sighed and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe not. But I don't think there's any point in thinkin' we've lost before we've even started."

"That's a good point, to be fair," Posey pointed out.

The others didn't seem so convinced but the air, at least, felt less unsettled now.

"Well, whatever happens," Tab spoke up, addressing the room from the bottom of his bunk and making sure to look at each of them in turn as he did so, "we just gotta make sure of one thing." He let a dramatic pause simmer on the air for a moment before he elaborated, "Third Platoon can't win."

This, also, was met with unanimous agreement. Whilst losing to First Platoon would hurt, losing to Third would be downright embarrassing.

Out of nowhere, Skinny laughed abruptly. When everyone turned to look at him, he explained, "You know, right before I left home after Christmas to come back to training my dad told me one thing. He told me that my team better win our first combat manoeuvre or it ain't looking good for the rest of the war."

"Aw, fuck, Skinny!" Perconte wailed as soon as he'd finished speaking. "Why the fuck would you say that?!"

"Before I left to come back my dad just told me to drink as much beer as I can before we get into combat because after that it ain't easy to come by," Talbert said, smirking all the while.

"Mine told me to kill lots of Germans," put in Christenson.

"Well, _mine_ told me..." added someone else, and thus everyone began to contribute what their fathers had supposedly told them the last time they'd seen them.

As soon as Luz had said his piece he turned to Posey expectantly, grinning.

Posey felt her hands get sweaty, and then itchy, so she wiped them roughly on her trousers. When she glanced up at the others she found their eyes on her, too, and suddenly she really regretted always being so vocal in their barracks-wide conversations.

Feeling squashed under the scrutiny, she blurted out, "Mine just told me to keep safe." As soon as the words were out she wanted to grab them where they'd settled unsteadily on the air and stuff them right back into her mouth.

"Ain't that nice?" remarked Guarnere. Suddenly, the conversation was up and running again. She'd never expected Guarnere, of all people, to come to her rescue at any point, but in that moment she couldn't have been more grateful for his loud mouth.

She excused herself from the barracks a little while later, the humidity suddenly feeling like it was choking her. She felt as though she burst out of the door and immediately circled around to the back of the barracks, forgetting, momentarily, where she was. How she wished there was a tree behind these barracks like there had been at Toccoa. She missed hiding behind that tree.

As soon as she'd lowered herself into the grass a deep Southern drawl spoke up from behind her. 

"What you said about your dad -" Roe began.

"I know," she said.

"But you told me -"

"I know." Posey dropped her eyes down to her lap, watching in her periphery as Roe came to sit beside her. "What I told you was true," she added quietly after a few moments.

Roe sighed. She imagined he'd suspected as much.

She could feel his eyes on her as he began speaking. "You can't just start lying to them, Wells."

Posey scoffed. " _Start_ lying to them? All I ever do is lie to them! Can't I just use a lie to make my life better for once?"

Roe didn't reply. She hadn't expected him to. The pair of them listened to the words echo back to them on the air, two pairs of eyes set straight ahead and staring at a fence blocking the camp off from the outside world.

Eventually, Posey conceded. "I know I shouldn't have done it." She nodded to herself once, watching closely at her hands fiddling in her lap. "I know that. I just..."

"I know," Roe said. Somehow, Posey believed that he did.

A silence fell over the pair, the sounds from the barracks carrying over on the gentle breeze to them. The men's voices sounded distant through the wooden walls but their jollity was ever clear. Every now and then they could make out the sound of Luz's laughter or of Perconte snapping at someone.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Posey asked into the relative silence.

Roe nodded once. "Sure. What is it?"

Posey shrugged and laughed to herself, a little bit sadly. "I'm making all of this up as I go," she confessed. "The lying and the secrets and the hiding. Even managing to slip out to shower or to get changed. I feel as though I've been trapped doing this forever but I'm still just... improvising."

Roe chuckled quietly along with her and eventually her laughter wasn't so sad anymore.

"Well, you're doin' a pretty good job of all of it," Roe told her. When she glanced at him he was offering her a small smile. "Don't know if I could do it."

Posey laughed brightly. "You definitely could," she said. "You hardly speak and always stick to the sidelines. If your voice wasn't so deep and you weren't so damn tall you could tell me you were a girl right now and I'd believe you."

Roe laughed. "Shut up."

"I'm being dead serious," she insisted, still giggling. "I'm not lying!"

Roe shook his head and smiled to himself, turning his eyes to the grass on the ground just ahead of him. "I know."


	23. Footlocker

Second Platoon had been dubbed the red team for their first field exercise. They each had red armbands tied around their biceps, secured over the top of their ODs and were dressed in full pack, exactly as they would be in actual combat, they'd been told. Posey was sure she would've felt weighed into the ground if she hadn't already had to run Currahee like this, or had to walk twelve miles in the pitch dark every Friday night. Maybe Sobel deserved more credit. He'd trained them well thus far, she thought.

That sentiment was not to last.

The objective of the exercise was simple, find one of the other platoons before they find you and 'shoot' them - that was, point guns and mortars at them so they couldn't argue about having been found. Second Platoon were at a hefty disadvantage in comparison to First and Third, however, in that they were being led by Sobel. The fears of the majority had been correct; Sobel wanted to win and he wanted to impress. Posey wasn't sure whether he would be doing either of those things even if he had chosen the most impressive platoon of the three. She hoped she was wrong.

Mere minutes into the exercise Posey recognised something fatal; Sobel couldn't read maps properly. She wished she hadn't watched him trying to, for now all she could think as she traipsed through the brown landscape of the woods was that the blind was leading the blind. Sobel had absolutely no idea where they were going, she could tell. This was made all the more clear when they came upon a ditch and he gestured to it hastily, ordering, "Easy Company! Take cover in this ditch!"

Posey found herself perched up on a ledge next to Johnny, aiming her M1 into a sea of nothing but trees and shrubbery. Nothing moved aside from Johnny's eyes as he rolled them.

Posey suppressed her grin and kept her eyes facing firmly forwards.

"Petty! Map!" Sobel ordered almost immediately. Posey turned purely out of instinct upon hearing the aggression in his tone only to find him violently beckoning Petty over. "Come on!"

"Ah, Christ!" Petty mumbled under his breath, slinging the strap of his M1 over his shoulder and retrieving the map for Sobel. As he approached he shuffled past Posey and she heard him grumbling a great many curses directed at Sobel under his breath. When he reached the company commanding officer, he all but shoved the map into his hands.

Posey turned back to face the front to keep her eyes on the woods before her, ready to shoot should anything attempt to jump out. In reality, she knew there was no one ahead of them. They could be miles and miles away from where they were supposed to be for all she knew - and for all Sobel knew, too, evidently. From behind her came those fateful words straight out of the mouth of the man they were supposed to be following: "We're in the wrong position."

In her periphery, Posey watched Winters hurry over to Sobel in a crouched run. When he'd gotten close enough, Sobel informed him, quieter this time, "We're in the wrong position."

Posey shared a look with Johnny, because _of course_ they were in the wrong position. Johnny rolled his eyes again before looking back to the front, though his glare never wavered. He looked as though he'd smelled something so incredibly rotten his face couldn't help but try and twist in on itself to escape. Distantly, Posey wondered how he'd come to perfect his collection of such incredible glares but she remained silent, staring ahead of her and aiming her gun at nothing.

"We're textbook position for ambush, sir," Winters replied quietly. "We should sit tight and let the enemy team come into our killing zone."

Posey saw Johnny nod his agreement at this suggestion in her periphery. She let out a silent sigh of relief - at least someone in a leadership position could talk sense. Maybe they weren't so doomed after all, so long as they had Winters looking out for them.

Sobel destroyed all of this hope in one fell swoop. "They're right up there somewhere," he said, referring to one of the other platoons. Posey didn't turn to see where he was gesturing to and instead kept her eyes trained on the trees lest she should accidentally give away her disdain. "Lets just get 'em!"

"Sir," Winters replied evenly, his patience clearly dwindling, "we have perfect cover here."

"Lieutenant, deploy your troops," was all Sobel said in response to that.

Posey closed her eyes and let out a silent, resigned sigh. They were going to lose this, she just knew it.

"Second Platoon," Winters began in a pitched whisper not seconds after Sobel had begun to march away, "move out. Tactical column."

"Fuck's sake," Posey murmured under her breath. She shared a final look with Johnny before jumping down from the ledge she'd been perched on. She followed after the rest of her platoon and their idiot of a commanding officer with a sour look of her own plastered onto her face, mentally plotting Sobel's death in a million different ways and wondering which option would hurt the most. 

Second Platoon was walking for twenty seconds at most before a camouflaged platoon of men rose up out of the shrubbery before them, guns pointed right at them and lips smirking behind their guns. That stopped Sobel in his tracks, and the rest of them behind him.

"Fuck," Skip whispered from beside Posey. She couldn't help but agree wholeheartedly.

One of the majors coordinating and spectating on the exercise seemed to appear out of thin air. He addressed Sobel in an unimpressed monotone, saying, "Captain, you've just been killed along with 95% of your company. Your outfit?"

Sobel didn't look at the man as he replied, only continued to stare at the men who'd 'killed' them. "Easy Company, Second Battalion, 506th."

Posey could only dream of the kind of exhilaration the men before them were feeling right now. They'd just been responsible for Sobel looking bad in front of his superiors, and nothing upset Sobel more than that. Better yet, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, for they'd done exactly as they'd been told. For the first time in her life, Posey dreamed of being in First Platoon.

The major noted this information on his clipboard briskly. "Leave three wounded men on the ground and report back to the assembly area," he said, and turned to walk away directly.

Sobel paused a few moments before turning. "You, you, you," he said, pointing his sidearm at each individual he'd picked with each word. He didn't spare a single glance backwards as he led the way back to the assembly area. Posey was glad he didn't; he would've seen the full magnitude of her resentment if he had.

"I knew that prick would get us killed," Guarnere snarled to Toye beside him. The pair of them were trudging through the mud and leaves with heads bent together, likely scowling just as much as Posey herself was.

"Yeah, well, lets just be grateful this wasn't the real thing," Toye replied, ever a voice of reason.

"What happens when it is the real thing though?" Guarnere sniped back.

"Then you've just got to hope and pray he's with some other platoon," Posey commented.

Skip nodded as he hopped over a fallen branch. "Got that right."

"I hope the bastard gets demoted," Johnny put in from Posey's other side.

No one replied, but they all nodded.

Back at the assembly area, Second Platoon found Third. The latter looked elated at finally having some company.

"First get you out too?" Blithe asked in his soft Southern drawl, grinning.

"Who the fuck else?" Johnny snapped.

"Alright, Easy Company, get ready to go again. Because they won, First Platoon now have the advantage of choosing where they start. All other rules and objectives remain the same. Platoon leaders, off you go."

Their second attempt at the field exercise went much the same, and they were caught and killed by First Platoon once more.

On their third try, it was Third Platoon that got them, to really rub salt in the wound, and Sobel left Posey among the dead as he was told to return to the assembly area for their final attempt of the day.

Posey laid in the dirt cursing that man's entire existence. Alton More did it aloud.

"If they let that man into combat he's gonna get everyone behind him killed," he was saying as he laid in the mud beside her. "Mark my words."

"It'll be a bloodbath," Posey agreed. She sighed, fiddling with a crunchy leaf and gazing at the sky. "Johnny's hoping they'll demote him for being such a terrible combat leader."

"Aren't we all," commented Skinny.

"True enough," Posey replied.

"You think they'll come get us after this whole thing is finished or will they just leave us here?" Skinny wondered aloud.

"I'm leaving after half an hour. I don't give a shit," vowed More. "Fuckin' leavin' us lying in the fuckin' dirt and mud. Asshole son of a bitch."

"Amen," Posey said dryly.

The three of them, true to More's word, left a little while over thirty minutes later. When they reached the assembly point they found it empty.

"Son of a fuckin' bitch!" More exclaimed.

"They really did leave us," Posey said through a bitter, disbelieving laugh.

"Wish I could say I was surprised," Skinny commented.

The three of them headed back to the barracks cold, wet, muddy, and pissed off. Posey wondered who her platoon had lost to in their final attempt at the combat exercise.

"Third," came the answer, grumbled at the trio the moment they were through the door.

"Fuck," More replied.

"I want him dead," Posey grumbled. She was about to collapse onto her bunk when she remembered she was wet and dirty. She'd have to live with being wet and dirty for the rest of the day, it seemed, which only made her angrier. She scooped up a fresh set of ODs and traipsed to the bathroom block, muttering profanely under her breath all the while, and had to content herself with a quick wash using the water from the tap for the time being.

If there had ever been a time Posey had thought she couldn't hate Sobel any more, she'd been wrong. This, right now, was the apex of her hatred. She wasn't sure she'd ever felt such a fierce burning of resentment in her chest but it remained with her even as she gave her dirty ODs into the laundry and headed back into the barracks.

"Wells?" Johnny asked when he saw her throw herself back on her bunk. She wasn't entirely clean but at least she wasn't wet anymore, and her clothes weren't sodden with mud. She would make do, as usual.

"What?"

"You okay?"

Posey was too infuriated to be touched that he was checking on her. "I'm fucking raging," she said in reply. "I want him dead."

"Join the club," Guarnere called out from his bunk.

She laid back on her bed in silence for a small while before she felt herself becoming irritable. Sitting up, her eyes fell to her footlocker, and she let out a slow breath. She would write. That would calm her down.

When she pushed herself up so she could walk over, her body screamed its protest. She ached all over, the cold from laying in the mud still echoing around inside of her. She threw the lid to her footlocker open mindlessly and rifled around inside with little patience.

"What the fuck have you got in there?" Tab asked as the noise of her displaced possessions filled the barracks. "Jesus, Wells."

"Is that a teddy bear?"

Posey looked Malarkey dead in the eyes as she replied, "Yes."

"What?"

"You brought a fuckin' teddy bear to boot camp?" Skip asked in disbelief.

Posey turned to him and nodded. "Yes."

"How are we only finding out about this now?" Luz questioned through a short laugh.

Posey shrugged, beginning to grin. "Because I don't share."

"Have you had that thing this whole time?" Toye asked. He was sitting up on his bed, now, hoping to catch a glimpse of Teddy.

"Since Toccoa," Posey replied. She retrieved the small, worn bear and held him up for all to see. "None of you are very observant."

"How'd you hide it from Sobel?" Lipton wondered. He didn't sound amazed or confused like the others, simply intrigued - which was understandable, really, because Sobel hadn't found the teddy bear or pulled him out when they'd had their last surprise contraband check.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, _that's_ what you wanna know?!" Guarnere exclaimed. "Not why the fuck he's got a fuckin' teddy bear?!"

Posey grinned. "Sobel, it appears, is also not very observant."

"Why do you have a fuckin' teddy bear?!" Guarnere demanded.

She sent him a polite smile. "Why not?"

"It's pathetic."

"You're jealous."

"Why the _fuck_ would I be -?!"

"Hey, come on, Guarnere, cool it!" Johnny stepped in. "He ain't hurtin' anyone."

Guarnere relented, though only in the face of one of Johnny's burning glares. When he'd lain back on his bunk and the attention of the masses had turned elsewhere, Posey thanked Johnny and then locked eyes with Roe, sat on the bunk beside hers.

"One less secret," she told him with a shrug. One less lie.

Roe nodded. His eyes fell on Teddy, now sat on her bed as she continued to rifle around in her footlocker, and he chuckled a bit to himself.

"What's his name?" he asked once Posey was sat back down on her bunk again, her writing materials in her lap. He gestured with his head to the teddy bear and Posey laughed.

"Teddy," she told him. She picked the bear in question up and sat him in her lap.

"Creative name," Roe said with a low laugh.

"I was three!" Posey protested with a giggle of her own.

They fell into silence after that, and it was only when she began writing that she realised she didn't really need to anymore. Her anger was all already gone. Maybe Mrs. Daniels had known exactly what she was doing when she'd secretly packed Teddy in her bag as a stowaway.

Posey smiled to herself and told Mrs. Daniels exactly that in her letter, though in fewer words and hidden under layers of coded language so that she didn't get a reprimand for contraband and her bear taken off of her.

When she was finished writing she put the letter in her footlocker, ready to send off after dinner, but left Teddy sitting on her bed. She was confident there would be no more contraband checks and thought he could use a breather.


	24. Musketeers

Posey didn't know that she could confidently say her fear had ever gone away. Ever since leaving England it had been there. Even when she was sitting idle at Mrs. Daniels' house, twiddling her thumbs and reading books beside a lit fireplace. Fear seemed to have been a constant in her life even since before she left England, when the Germans had started dropping their bombs over her home. But with time and long days and lots of things to keep her busy, at some point that fear had started to dull.

Of course, she always felt the icy stab of foreboding when she snuck out of the barracks in the middle of the night, and again when she would be back laying in bed, thinking of what the consequences might be if she was ever found out - _really_ found out, by someone important. But there tended to always be other things to worry about. The fear had come to resemble radio silence as opposed to the cacophony of full-volume music rattling around in her skull it had been initially.

Now, though, as she stood out on the deck of the RMS Samaria, a troopship bound for where she could only pray was England, she thought she might be sick.

It was a different sort of fear to what she'd felt on the ship over to America. She should have felt happy, she knew, but all she felt was nervous. There was so much uncertainty. After everything, she wasn't sure she'd made the right decision. What would her mother say once she saw her? She'd had to pay an awful lot of money to make sure Posey was evacuated so far away, after all. And what would the US Army do once she'd gone - try to get her for desertion, sure, but what about when they discovered that a Joseph Wells from Boston serving in Easy Company didn't actually exist?

Posey regretted that she hadn't gotten to say goodbye to Mrs. Daniels one final time.

Secretly, all of Second Platoon, and likely the rest of the company, too, had assumed they'd all get to go home before being sent overseas. Posey knew she'd already said a decent goodbye after Christmas, but there was still so many things she wanted to say - she had new stories to tell Mrs. Daniels, ones she couldn't tell in letters. Still, she had to remind herself that it was okay because now she was really going home, _home_ home, and she'd get to see her mum and her brother and that meant everything. Maybe one day she'd visit Mrs. Daniels but until then she'd have to content herself with writing. Plus, once she was home she wouldn't have the army monitoring and censoring her letters anymore - in a few weeks she'd be able to write Mrs. Daniels to her heart's content.

"Doin' okay, Wells?" Roe asked, seeming to appear out of nowhere. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and ducked his head to meet her eyes.

Posey nodded, largely to clear her head of her reverie. "Yeah. Fine."

"Seasick?" he wondered.

She shook her head. "Nervous."

"Right." Roe stuck both of his hands into his pockets and offered a small smile. "Well, ain't much I can do about that but if you wanna talk..."

Posey sent him a smile. "I know. Thank you. But I'm sure you've got a whole load of seasick paratroopers to deal with anyway so I won't keep you."

Roe laughed a little bit and nodded. "Yeah." He tapped her once on the shoulder before retracting his hand. "I'll be back out in a while if you decide you wanna talk."

"See you then, then, I suppose," Posey said, smiling a little bit.

"See you then."

There was a chill in the air out on the deck, the wind thrashing at her ODs until one side was plastered to her and the other was letting in so much air she was frozen. The bite to the air reminded her of home, of England; she could hardly believe she was going back. At last, her odyssey had come to an end. Of course, she still had a little while left to get through, but home was so close she could almost taste it. Even in the bitter chill of the wind on the sea, she felt warmed by the prospect. Finally, she was homeward bound, and for real, this time. Directly homeward bound. Or she hoped so, anyway.

"Rumour has it it's Europe," Johnny informed her as he came to lean on the railing beside her. He didn't look at her but his voice was unusually soft. "So looks like you're in luck."

Posey laughed quietly. "Where'd you hear that?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "I'm your superior, you ain't supposed to ask me shit like that."

"Oh, come on, Johnny!" Posey exclaimed, giggling as she nudged him lightly. "You're acting like Sobel!"

"Take that back right now."

Posey grinned when he glanced at her. "Tell me your sources."

Johnny shook his head at her, but he laughed, too. "I ain't tellin' you shit," he insisted. Then he looked at her properly, calculatedly. "What are you gonna do when we get to England?"

Posey sucked in a harsh breath and turned to look out at the water. The abyss of dark blue was calming, the salt water being sprayed into her face not so much.

She shrugged. "Head to London as soon as possible, I suppose. Go home and stay there."

"What about the army? Desertion?"

Posey sighed and dropped her head to rest on her forearms on the railing. "I don't know. They won't know where to find me, at least, and by then I won't be Joseph anymore. Hopefully that means I'll be in the clear."

"You got a lot riding on hope," Johnny observed. He was watching her closely, hard eyes analysing what he could see of her closed expression where her forehead rested on her arms.

Posey glanced up to shoot him a sad smile. "Hope is all I have."

Johnny nodded. "It'll work out," he told her with finality, turning to look at the water.

"You think so?" Her voice emerged sounding smaller and more feminine than she could remember it being.

Johnny turned to her and seemed to look at her with new eyes. "How old are you?" he asked instead of answering the question.

"Eighteen," she replied. "Almost nineteen."

"How -?!"

"I lied about my age."

"There anythin' you _haven't_ lied about?"

Posey laughed. "No, I don't think so." Then she grinned. "No, actually, my mum really is British. I didn't lie about that."

Johnny sighed as he turned to look out at the mass of blue once more, locking his eyes on the rolling waves as the ship ploughed through them. "I keep forgetting how young you are. Doin' all this by yourself." He seemed to be talking largely to himself, even though the words were addressed to Posey.

Posey shrugged. "I am young," she admitted, "but I haven't been doing it all by myself. I couldn't have done the half of it without you."

"Wells -"

"It's true!" she insisted. "And I'll never say it again so don't take this for granted."

Johnny laughed. "Alright." He shook his head. "Take care of yourself when we get to England, alright? I won't be there anymore to keep your ass out of trouble."

Posey nodded, smiling at him widely now. "I will," she promised. "I'll miss having you there to look out for me."

"Shut up," Johnny said.

She grinned but felt her heart ache. She would miss having him around.

They spent a small while in companionable silence, both seeking refuge from the chaos down below. Easy Company had been set up in what seemed to be the very midst of the ship, making it a nightmare to get in or out of their bunking area. Between the struggle to escape, the noise, and the godawful smell, Posey was seriously considering just sleeping up on the deck.

She was torn from her reverie when a figure came to lean on the handrail on her other side. Posey laughed when she saw who it was.

"Back so soon?" she asked teasingly.

Roe shrugged. "Ain't much fun down there."

Posey smiled to herself as she turned her eyes back to the ocean, its abyss appearing to grow steadily darker with the dying light from the sky. "You know," she began, her smile playing on her lips, "you two are the only two people in the whole world who know my biggest secret. Well -" she shrugged, grinning now, "- and an old woman whose name I won't tell you for fear of incriminating her."

"Lucky us," Johnny said drily. He didn't turn to look at either of the people beside him but if she leaned far enough forwards Posey could catch sight of the smile he was wearing.

"We're like a little secret society," Posey went on. She giggled to herself. "The Three Musketeers or something."

"You know, for someone with an awful lot of secrets you sure do talk a lot."

She laughed loudly, throwing her head back in the process. "Can't help it," she said, still laughing through her words. "Getting to speak without the fake deep voice or the bloody accent is so... liberating."

"You speak a whole lot even when you're pretendin' to be a boy," Roe pointed out.

Posey shrugged. "I've got a lot to say." Then she took a step back from the railing so she could look at both of them simultaneously. "Why do I feel as though you're ganging up on me right now? I thought we were supposed to be the Three Musketeers!"

Johnny pointed an accusing finger at her. "You said that, not us."

Posey giggled. "Oh, Johnny, you'll miss me when I'm gone."

"No I won't."

"Aw, you're getting teary already!" she crooned.

"You are such a pain in my ass, Wells."

"What kind of pain?" she wondered, leaning back on the railing. "Closer to a thorn or a bullet?"

"A fuckin' knife."

She grinned. "Excellent." Then she glanced at Roe. "I think he needs your assistance."

Roe knocked his shoulder into hers but he couldn't hide his smile. "Shut up, Wells."

Posey giggled, setting her eyes back on the ocean. "Only for you."

She let herself imagine England for a little while, what it might look like now and whether it'd be much changed. She wondered just how bad London looked these days now that the Blitz was, for the most part, over. But she didn't let herself get upset; whatever London looked like now, it was still home.

"I think this was the ship I was on to get to America, you know," she spoke up after a few minutes of silence. "The Samaria, right?"

"Yeah," Johnny affirmed.

She nodded. "Yeah. That was the name of the one they evacuated us on, too. It wasn't a troopship back then, though, so it looks different."

"You've come full circle, then," Roe said. He didn't look at her but he wore the tiniest of smiles.

Posey smiled to herself and nodded, turning back to the waves which would guide her home. "Yes," she replied, "I suppose I have."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the kudos and comments, they give me motivation to fight through the writers' block <3 hahahahha


	25. Footprints

Posey felt she had spent her life in asking for wishes which were never granted. Just this once, however, the universe seemed to have taken pity on her. The RMS Samaria docked in England.

Her first day back on home soil was spent, for the most part, on a train. They were being transported from Liverpool to somewhere down south - they hadn't been told where, as was typical of the army, but it was closer to London than Liverpool was and that was good enough for Posey. She spent the majority of the journey gazing out at the English countryside, longing for the moment she'd be able to breathe in the air of home. With every second she drew so close to home she could almost hear the shouting of newspaper headlines and the screech of car tyres.

In order to get away she knew she'd have to wait for a weekend pass and she prayed it wouldn't take too long to get one. They'd still be training in England - field manoeuvres and some other such - but she was hoping Sobel would ease up on his iron-fisted rule now that they'd made it overseas. She was hoping for a lot of things, really, but that was certainly one of the biggest (and most unlikely).

They ended up in Aldbourne, a small countryside village Posey had never heard of. It was close to Swindon, which she had heard of, and about a two hour train journey to London. She couldn't wipe the smile off of her face after they'd been told, having been informed they could go to London on weekend passes if they were willing to make the trek. A mere _two hours_ from home. Her heart both ached with longing and lifted with excitement. She felt lighter than she had in months.

Their barracks were set up just on the outskirts of the village and, as always, Posey managed to procure a bunk by the door. She did so with a small smile tugging at her lips; she wouldn't have to be doing this for much longer. She'd be going home and then she'd be Posey again, as opposed to Josephine or Wells or Duckie. Her heart clenched at the thought.

She sat in the mess hall smiling into her food. She didn't talk much - she found she didn't have much to say beyond what she couldn't disclose for obvious reasons - but she didn't feel nearly as alone as she had for what seemed like forever. She listened in on the conversations around her with vague interest but really was just trying to commit each voice to memory. Her days with Easy Company were numbered now and, as much as the thought thrilled her, it made her sad too. She'd grown rather fond of some of the men. She thought she might miss being part of Second Platoon. Or maybe she'd just miss being part of something. Something special, that was. Something worth being part of.

"What's got you grinnin' like a fool, Duckie?" Malarkey asked around a mouthful of food.

Posey made a face at his terrible table manners but her smile still tugged at her lips. "Just thinking of weekend passes in London," she said. This wasn't entirely a lie.

"God, I'm dreamin' about 'em," Luz declared. "I wonder if British girls are anythin' like American ones."

"Too good for you, you mean?" Posey quipped with a grin.

Luz was undeterred by her comment. He went on, "I heard these European girls are easier to get than back home. Somethin' about they got no morals."

Posey rolled her eyes. "Even if they don't have morals they've still got eyes, Luz. One look at you and they'll soon find their morals again."

Luz scoffed and brushed her away. "Yeah, fuck you, alright? I'll get me a British dame, don't you worry."

Posey laughed. There had been no bite to his words, but also no conviction.

"Ain't sure there's gonna be many in this place, anyway," Toye put in. "Looks like we're in the middle of fuckin' nowhere."

"There'll be local girls," Penkala commented with certainty. He had joined the company at Fort Benning and had quickly clicked with Malarkey and Skip, completing their mortar squad. The three were inseparable now. "There's always local girls."

"Yeah, let's just hope Sobel lets us have our weekend passes," Tab commented. "There might be locals but I wanna see what's going on in London."

Posey smiled to herself. So did she.

Their training in England turned out to be quite a bit less intense than anything they'd experienced back in the States. For the most part they were sent out traipsing around fields, platoons pitched against each other, to practise manoeuvres. They spent quite a bit of time at the rifle range, too, and, much to Posey's chagrin, a lot of time was spent on hand to hand. Even with all of the PT she'd had to endure since Toccoa, she didn't seem to be any better at it, though she hadn't since had a nosebleed anywhere near as explosive as the one she'd had back then.

Posey worked hard and earned herself an expert marksman badge, which she wore with pride and felt more honoured about than she'd expected when she received it. She had no idea when she'd become so invested in all of this playing-soldier stuff but she could scarcely remember a moment when she'd ever been prouder of herself.

Then a couple of weeks into their time in Aldbourne, Easy Company ended up in possession of the highly-coveted weekend passes.

"Our first passes should be spent in London," Tab declared the Friday night of the weekend pass. "We get the train tomorrow morning and spend the weekend in one of the world's busiest cities. What d'ya say?"

"I agree," Luz answered, rising from his place on his bunk as though to prove himself. "Heard London pubs are where it's at."

"You'll want to be going to a bar, really," Posey spoke before she could properly filter her words. When all eyes in the barracks seemed to swivel in her direction she stuttered over a messy explanation. "My mom's British and she always told me that pubs are more for, like, talkin' all casual, and bars are for meetin' people and dancin' and stuff." She could feel her cheeks burning in the aftermath of an accent which she apparently couldn't do anymore. She'd tried to overcompensate way too much and had ended up sounding closer to Popeye Wynn than Duckie Wells. She cleared her throat awkwardly and added, "That's what she said, anyway," in a much less severe accent. She prayed no one would notice.

"Makes sense," Toye said, her saving grace.

The conversation continued barrelling on and Posey caught Johnny's eye. He was watching her with an unimpressed expression which told her that he, at least, had picked up on her accent disaster. Even though she really shouldn't have, she laughed. The accent had ended up being almost comically southern and she had no idea how no one questioned it.

The following morning they all got dressed up in their dress greens, jump wings shining bright on lapels, and packed duffle bags ready to stay overnight in a hotel. The entire affair of having to pack a bag made it easier for Posey to pack up everything she'd be needing to take with her without arising suspicion. She was at the back of the group as they left the barracks and took a moment to gaze back into them, overwhelmed with nostalgia. The barracks here weren't much like the ones in America had been, but they'd still become something of a home to her. Or, rather, the people in them had. She thought that when all was said and done and when she was back sleeping in her childhood bedroom she'd miss the barracks, for all the bunks were low and the mattresses hard and the sound of so many men sleeping in one room so loud it was almost impossible to fall asleep in. Above all, she knew she'd miss the men. She'd miss being a member of Second Platoon but she was grateful that she'd gotten to be, for a little while. And she'd even earned herself a nickname in the process, which she'd actually come to be rather fond of.

She drew in a deep breath, trying to lock the barracks into her memory, before turning on her heel and rushing after the rest of her platoon where they were beginning to make their way towards the nearest train station.

She was going home. It didn't feel real.

Posey found herself squeezed in between Luz and Liebgott on the train, opposite Skip, Malarkey, and Penkala, and let herself sink into the feel of the train rumbling beneath her and the sounds of excited chatter. Lieb was going on and on about how good of a dancer he supposedly was and Luz was laughing loudly at him all the while. Posey giggled to herself. She would miss this.

Suddenly, she didn't know how she was supposed to say goodbye.

She locked eyes with Johnny, who was sat with Bull across the aisle, and he seemed to know simply from a look at her face what was going through her head. He offered her the faintest hint of a smile. She wondered whether he would tell the others what had happened once they realised she was gone for good, whether he'd tell them she'd been a girl all along. Or would he say nothing - and Roe say nothing, too, as she trusted he would because he'd promised not to tell a soul? Eventually, would all of Second Platoon, even all of Easy Company, forget she'd ever been there at all? The duck who had struggled with almost every part of PT but was a brilliant shot. Who'd been the smallest of the bunch but always insisted Perconte was the same height as her, if not smaller. Who'd been almost as loud as Luz and who had had to take a great deal of the blame for Second Platoon's barracks being so loud in the early morning. Would they really forget all of that?

For the first time in her life, Posey found herself wondering how big the mark she left on people was, how deep her footprints were. She found herself contemplating her own significance. She would miss all of these men, but would they miss her?

When the train finally pulled in at their station - King's Cross, naturally - Posey found herself beside Roe, by some miracle of fate.

"I'm going to slip out," she whispered to him as they began to file off of the train. "This way, hopefully no one will realise I'm gone. I have another train to catch, see."

Roe shook his head with a tiny, rueful smile tugging at his lips. "They'll notice you're gone, Wells."

Posey shrugged and smiled sadly. "Johnny will make my excuses, I'm sure." She glanced up to make sure they were still going unobserved at the back of the group as they walked the platform and then clasped his hand tightly. "Thank you for everything. You've been a really great friend to me." She smiled and felt the sting of tears in her eyes, though she knew they wouldn't fall. "A _best_ friend," she corrected herself.

Roe smiled. "Take care of yourself, alright? Write to me someday or somethin'."

Posey giggled and nodded. "I will." Though they both knew she wouldn't. She didn't know his address and he was going to war. Some part of her felt guilty for that. She'd trained with these men and now they were going off to do the hard part while she'd be lounging at home. She brushed the thought away and gave Roe's hand a squeeze. "I'll miss you," she said quietly, almost hopefully.

Roe breathed a small laugh. "I'll miss you too."

"Tell Johnny goodbye for me, will you?" she asked. "And tell him I said thank you for everything, too."

"I will," Roe promised. He gave her hand a squeeze back.

Then that was it. The rest of Second Platoon made their way out onto the bustling streets of London, talking loudly and laughing even louder. She'd miss that sound.

Roe shot her a final, small smile over his shoulder before he turned the corner with the rest of them.

Then, once more, she was back to being alone.

But now, at least, she had a train to catch. A train that would lead her home. _Home_ home. For real this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay sorry _now_ it's the end of part 1. i was mistaken last chapter. woopsies.


	26. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PART TWO: Pyrrhic Victories  
> "My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone."- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

The moment the train pulled into the station, Posey was on her feet and pushing her way to the doors. When she stepped out onto the platform she felt the smile on her lips as she took in a deep breath of air. The air of London. The air of home.

Those first few steps back on the London pavements brought tears to her eyes, though she could hardly fathom why - she had a few blocks to walk yet before she'd be anywhere near her neighbourhood. But this was somewhere she recognised, the train station she had had to use as a child to get to school. She may not have been at her house yet but she was home.

Her walk was leisurely, spent taking in her surroundings and laughing to herself every now and then because she had actually done it. She had made it through basic and gotten her jump wings and then made it back across the Atlantic. God, had it been hard, but she'd done it. The streets and corners sped away from her as she ran through what she would say upon knocking at the door over and over again in her head. Would a simple 'Hi, Mum' do or did the situation call for something grander? Would she even be able to get out any words at all with how emotional she already was, just walking the streets?

As she drew closer, Posey lifted her eyes from the floor in the hopes of jolting herself out of her reverie - she would say whatever came naturally, she had decided, and that was that - and felt her breath catch in her throat. With every step closer to home the buildings seemed to appear increasingly more broken, ranging from damaged to destroyed, skeletons of what they'd once been. The pavements, usually grey and glittering under the sun, were tainted black with soot, and even the sky seemed to darken with every footfall. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd last breathed but when she finally did the breath rattled through her, a stuttering, choked sound as she begged what she thought might have happened to not really be the truth.

Not being able to bear knowing the answer a second too soon, as soon as Posey turned into her old road she had her eyes glued to the floor. She tried to force herself to believe that when she looked back up again she would be standing in front of her home and it would be as pristine and beautiful as she remembered it. Comfortable and quaint and pretty and warm. The home of her childhood, where a little girl had played with her brother and a husband had loved his wife.

Posey stopped in front of where she knew the house was - she still remembered counting how many footsteps it took to get there from the end of the road back when she was seven - and forced herself to breathe. She had jumped out of aeroplanes and shot guns loaded with real bullets - hell, she had cut all her hair off and pretended to be a man so that she could join the paratroopers! If she could do all that, surely she could look up.

When she did, her knees gave out. What was before her, collapsed into a heap of rubble and debris on the ground, was not the home of her childhood at all. Not even the bright red door was discernible from the midst of the damage. She felt the pavement digging into her trousers and knew she was likely bleeding but didn't care. All she could do was stare, even as the disaster before her became a blur of black and brown when the tears pooled in her eyes.

There were a few minutes of silence. Her little corner of London seemed to be entirely abandoned in that time, no cars or pedestrians making their way into her little bubble. She simply sat and stared at the wreckage of the home she'd been dreaming about, the tears in her eyes the only discernible emotion on her face.

Her hands were pressed firmly to the ground, attempting to dig in and gouge it out in a handful, her legs curled underneath her whilst her head ducked gradually forwards. Her entire body wracked with the impact of her first loud, howling sob. The rest came in quick succession afterwards. When her arms buckled under her as well, she wailed into her hands, which stung with how firmly they were pressed into the ground.

It had all been for nothing. The home she had been dreaming of, the family and the life she had fought for so desperately, had left without her. She was too late.

In a moment of sudden clarity she drew herself upwards and ran to the nearest post office, which had a makeshift, handwritten sign pinned to the deformed door detailing where the next-closest post office was now that this one had been destroyed. Posey ran there, too, and was all but gasping for breath as she pushed in, tears still drying on her face. She demanded to know how she would find out the names of those who had died in the local bombings.

"What's the name, son?" the woman behind the desk asked, smiling at Posey kindly. "If you can give me a name and an address I can have a look for you."

Posey felt the tension in her shoulders dissipate under the woman's gentle smile and nodded. "Thank you," she murmured, and then remembered to answer the question. "The surname is Wells, ma'am," she said, forcing a smile, and then recited her former address.

The kind woman nodded, offered another smile, and then disappeared into a room behind the desk to look up the coveted information. The entire time she was back there, Posey was bouncing around on the balls of her feet, hands tucked up deep inside her sleeves and teeth worrying at her bottom lip. When the woman returned, Posey stilled immediately, all of the tension back in her body.

The woman offered a strained smile and Posey just knew. Still, she listened for the verdict. "I have a Mrs. Jane G. Wells and a Flight Lieutenant Jonathan H. Wells who both lived at that address," the shopkeeper began hesitantly.

Posey nodded. "My mother and my brother," she whispered, eyes glued to the piece of paper clutched in the woman's pale hands.

The woman drew in an audible breath, forced a smile, and slid the ripped slip of paper across the counter towards Posey.

When she looked down, she found it was a newspaper clipping, ripped so that the only name visible was one of the ones she needed to know about. And, beside it, printed in neat little letters that taunted her with their clarity, was the murderer of her childhood.

_'Mrs. Jane G. Wells - Deceased.'_

"No," Posey said immediately. She slid the piece of paper back across the desk. "No, I think you've gotten it wrong. Can you check again? Please?" She shook her head, tilting her chin up to create an air of authority. "Please check again, ma'am. Please."

The woman shook her head, a pitying smile on her lips. "I'm sorry."

Posey shook her own in turn. "Please," she whispered, her voice cracking on delivery.

"I'm so, so, terribly sorry," the woman offered, but even she didn't know what to do with herself.

Posey picked up the slip of paper once more and smoothed it out across the counter. She could see the writing on the other side when she did that, as though it was trying to hide the traitorous words from her view. But still they remained. Her mother, deceased. All that was left was her brother.

"Is my brother okay?" she asked. Her voice was quiet, tentative. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to know the answer.

"Flight Lieutenant Jonathan H. Wells?" the woman checked.

Posey nodded, sniffling.

"He's in hospital, son. Wounded but alive."

"Do you know where?"

"The RAF General Hospital in Wiltshire." The woman offered another warm smile. "I can get the address for you, if you'd like?"

Posey tried her very best to smile. "That'd be brilliant. Thank you."

The woman made quick work of finding the address and writing it out for Posey, handing it to her on a small piece of paper. Posey offered a final smile before she left, and before she even knew what she was doing her feet were tugging her back home. Or what used to be home. What once had been home.

When she got there she sat cross-legged on the pavement just before the front gate, gazing at the wreckage with watery eyes and a blank expression. Even staring straight at the wreckage and clutching the newspaper clipping to her chest, she knew it hadn't quite processed yet. It probably wouldn't for a while. But she knew, even then, when she felt more numb than sad because she still didn't quite believe it, that she'd spend the rest of her life missing the home that lay in ashes before her now. Missing not just the building but the life she'd had there, the person she'd been there. She'd spend the rest of her life missing that part of her. She knew she wasn't ready to let it go just yet.

The day was still relatively young and Posey knew she'd have to get moving soon. Her bubble had been burst a few times by stray cars and pedestrians, who'd looked at her with curious, pitying eyes and left her alone. But she had things she needed to do and at the top of that list was seeing her brother.

Posey dragged her feet behind her as she made her way back to the train station, keeping her eyes locked on the floor. The next train she needed would be leaving in forty minutes, so she chose a bench and sat on it, staring into space.

When her train was called she traipsed to the platform and boarded with everyone else. She couldn't even remember buying a ticket, but she knew she must have because she had one ready to be checked when she was asked for it. She sat in a seat by the window and watched the British countryside speed by her once more, though this time with far less excitement. No one bothered her throughout the journey. A part of her wished they had.

The RAF General Hospital was bustling with activity when Posey arrived. She was conscious of the fact that she was still dressed in an American Airborne dress uniform and parading around as a boy, and thus how was anyone going to believe she was actually there to see her brother? She supposed yet more lying was in order. At this point, would it ever end?

"Excuse me?" Posey asked the nurse behind the reception desk. She took care to readopt her deep, American voice as she spoke. When the nurse looked up and offered a polite smile, Posey went on, "Would you be able to tell me where Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Wells is, please?"

"Can I ask your relationship to the patient?"

"I'm his cousin," Posey replied, thinking on her feet. "Private Joseph Wells with the 101st Airborne, ma'am."

The nurse looked suspicious but her attention was drawn swiftly away by another nurse coming up beside her and claiming to be ready to take over her shift. When the original nurse turned back to Posey, her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips pursed, conflict written across her face. After a few moments' pause she sighed and flipped hastily through the papers on her clipboard.

"Ward Number Five," the nurse told her in a pitched whisper, eyes shooting to the other nurse to check she wasn't being overheard. "It's an officers' ward so it's on the other side of the building, back out through the main doors and across the grass."

Posey let out a relieved sigh and smiled brightly. "Thank you so much."

The nurse smiled warmly. "Don't mention it, private."


	27. Blanket

Posey walked the halls of Ward Number Five with her heart wobbling around in her boots. Whilst the ward seemed less chaotic than the others she'd passed, likely because it was a designated officers' ward, she still cringed at some of the states she saw the men in. She resented herself for looking away, for these were men who had been wounded in combat just like her brother had been, just like most of the men of Easy Company likely would be, and she couldn't bring herself to look. With every step further into the ward she felt bile creeping its way up her throat, wondering whether she'd even be able to look at her brother when she found him.

She came upon John at the opposite end of the ward to the door, tucked away into a corner and reading a folded-in-half newspaper which he held with one hand. As she approached she took care to look him over, for he didn't have any discernible injuries, and came up relieved. Whatever he was in for didn't seem so bad at all. She could look at him, at least, and do so with little distress at that. However, for all that he looked whole, he didn't look much the same as she remembered at all. Infinitely aged by what he'd been through, it seemed, even his posture was weary. His eyes appeared sunken in, weighed down by dark bags that revealed a plethora of sleepless nights. His blond hair was thinner and so was his face, skin pulled taut over sharp cheekbones. He looked a shell of the boy she'd watched leave for training at the beginning of the war.

Well, he was no longer a boy at all, it seemed.

"John," she said when she approached, her voice a mere whisper.

Where he sat propped up against the bed's headboard, John was bathed in sunlight, an ethereal glow settling around him and having him appear as though he was in a Renaissance painting. Even when ailing he seemed unattainably superior to anyone she'd ever met. He'd always been her hero.

When Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Wells looked up at his sister, his eyebrows crashed down. His jaw fell agape and slackened. He seemed to be frozen in time for a few moments.

"Hi," Posey began tentatively, taking two minute steps forwards. She wanted to reach out and run a hand over the pristine white bedsheets he sat under - find out whether they were as soft as they looked - but she didn't. She held his gaze, her eyes wide and hopeful whilst his were narrowed and confused.

"Posey?"

He looked as though he was seeing a ghost. She felt as though she was, too. There was something colourless about his appearance, now that she was close up. The gold they'd once shared in their hair seemed grey and dull on him now. Did hers look the same?

"Hi," she said again. She didn't know what else to say.

"What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that? How did you even find me?"

That was John, same as ever, always wanting to know the fine print immediately. There was no 'how are you', no 'I missed you', not even the hint of a smile. Posey felt stupid for ever imagining that he might say either of those things and even more stupid for hoping for a smile. His smiles had always been few and far between, and she had no idea why she'd expected one whilst he was laying wounded in a hospital bed.

"I came to visit you," she replied, choosing to answer the questions one by one. "I..." She trailed off, wondering how to even begin to explain what she'd done. Standing there under his piercing gaze she felt she'd been incredibly foolish, her life from the past year a series of increasingly terrible decisions. She feared his reaction but pushed on anyway. "I wanted to get home. I was worried about you - about you and mum..." She trailed off once more, then cleared her throat and added, "The quickest way across the ocean was via troopship so I pretended to be a boy and trained to be a paratrooper. I passed, as well. Got my jump wings." She pointed the shiny silver pin on her lapel out to him. His eyes didn't flicker to glance down at it.

Posey sighed and let her eyes slide down to her boots where they toed at the tiling beneath her. "Did you know," she began, her voice hoarse and strained, "about mum?"

"Yes," John said. When Posey risked a glance up his eyes were hard. "Of course I knew."

"When did it happen?"

"About three months ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice broke the moment the question hit the air. She wiped furiously at the lone tear that tracked down her cheek, betrayed by how it exposed her as being just as weak as ever. She had wanted to prove to him how strong she was now, how brave she'd been to do what she'd done to get home. All she felt was stupid.

John shrugged and looked back down to his newspaper, an air of unbothered nonchalance about him. "I didn't think it right to tell you in a letter."

"You were going to wait until the end of the war?" Posey's eyebrows sat screwed together, her eyes wide and tearful. "What if you didn't make it that long? And I crossed the Atlantic back home to find I had no family left? What then?"

John's eyes shot up to her with fire sparking in their depths. "Why the fuck would you say something like that?"

Her voice was small when she replied. "What?"

"The life expectancy of a pilot is terribly short, Posey. Shorter than you can imagine. Every sortie I get sent on I make sure not to organise anything for any day after so I'm not taking my life for granted. I didn't think that far ahead because I can't afford to. Thinking that far ahead when you're at war is a death sentence."

"I'm sorry."

Posey shut her eyes and wondered how this had all gone so terribly wrong. Her happy reunion with her beloved brother had somehow become a bitter standoff. Whilst she recognised the face, she didn't recognise the man.

But, she hoped, he was still in there. Just a bit hardened.

"John," she began warily, afraid to say the wrong thing, "I don't know what to do now. Now that I'm back in England, I mean."

John didn't say anything but his eyebrows seemed to beckon for her to continue. She noticed that even though the lighting hadn't much changed he didn't look so angelic now.

"I paraded as a boy and trained with the paratroopers to get home and now I'm here. But we don't have a house. I'm supposed to be in America still. And you're wounded." She paused, trying desperately not to sigh. She knew self-pity was one of her worst traits and sought not to reveal that she was still guilty of it to the highest degree. "What do I do now? Where do I go?"

John paused a moment, considering. He sat the newspaper down in his lap and tapped his palm atop it where it lay against his thigh, beating a steady rhythm. After a few moments, he declared, "You'll have to stay with the paratroopers." He said it so casually, as though he was talking about the weather, yet so decisively. He left no room for argument.

_"What?"_

"I'm wounded, Josephine," John replied immediately, the roll of his eyes betraying his dwindling patience. He huffed as though annoyed she'd have the audacity to question his judgement. "You'll need to earn money to support us both which is alright, really, because American soldiers get paid more than everyone else. And I've heard the paratroopers get paid even more than that. Is that true?"

"Only because the mortality rate is so high!" Posey exclaimed in as hushed a voice as she could manage, conscious of the surrounding beds and RAF officers inside them. She shook her head, attempting to clear it so she could form an argument that would make her brother see sense. "I don't even get paid in sterling. I get paid in dollars that they send back to the States."

"You're being awfully selfish right now, Josephine," John said coldly, disregarding that argument entirely.

"I don't want to go to war, Jonathan! You of all people should understand why!"

"As your sole and legal guardian now, you'll do as I say and not ask why."

"You're not my legal guardian at all," Posey replied with a scowl. "I'm eighteen and not a child. But even if I wasn't, as far as any law is concerned - British or American or otherwise - I'm still staying in Boston with Mrs. Daniels because they won't let evacuees back yet!"

John beckoned her towards him with a curl of a finger resting on his newspaper. When she approached, albeit reluctantly, her movements were sluggish. Feeling as though her limbs were weighing her down, she struggled to meet his eyes. There was something enigmatic in them. He'd never been an open book to her but she couldn't begin to decipher what his eyes were betraying now.

As soon as she was close enough, John hissed, "The RAF won't let me back in." He kept his voice low, his eyes darting to the surrounding beds.

Posey didn't know what to say to that other than, "What?"

Instead of replying verbally, John wrenched his other arm out from beneath the sheets and displayed a bandaged stub. His hand was gone, severed at the wrist. Posey stuttered over words that never surfaced, her mind a whirl of chaos.

"The RAF won't let me back in and I can't bloody well get another job double lively, can I?" John snarled. "So I'd appreciate it if you would stop thinking about yourself for once and see the bigger picture. People can't afford to be selfish in wartime, Josephine. Everything is for the bigger picture." He rolled his eyes as he carefully positioned the duvet back over his arm. "You'd do well to realise that as soon as possible."

Like most things in her life since the war had begun, Posey realised, she didn't have any choice in this. There was no way out.

"I'll do it, then," she said, her voice lacking the conviction she'd attempted to project into it. "I'm on a weekend pass and I haven't told anyone what I'm doing so I can go back and just tell them I got lost or something."

"You're still training?"

"Yes."

"Good." John nodded his approval. "You're too green to go to war just yet."

Posey's blood fizzed in her veins, simultaneously freezing cold and boiling hot. She'd be going to war. She couldn't imagine herself in a warzone, had tried not to. She wondered why she'd avoided the worst case scenario for so long. Maybe if she hadn't she'd know what to say.

The pair of them remained in silence for a while after that. Posey stayed standing and made no move to grab a chair or sit on the bed, and John didn't acknowledge her for the most part. Eventually, he resumed reading his newspaper. As she watched him, Posey wondered how she hadn't noticed his lack of a right hand before. It seemed so obvious in hindsight.

After a few more minutes, Posey cleared her throat. "Where will you stay," she wondered, "when I... go?"

John shrugged. He didn't look up. "I'll be in hospital for a while. I've lost all of my toes too." He shrugged once more, his voice barren of emotion and his face entirely blank. "Frostbite," he explained. "After that I suppose the RAF will have to put me up somewhere. They won't pay me forever, though."

Posey shook her head. "No, I know." She couldn't remember whether she'd ever felt so young and naïve in his presence. She felt about six years old standing beside him.

"So are you heading back, then?" John asked nonchalantly.

Posey tried to hide the disappointment on her face, ignored the sting of the dismissal. "Yes," she said. "I suppose so."

"Bye."

She lifted a limp hand in some vague imitation of a wave and regretted it immediately. "Bye."

As she traipsed her way back to the train station, what she wished for more than ever was for the day to be over. Never had she lost so much within the space of a mere few hours. At least tomorrow she'd have nothing left to lose.


	28. Sunrise

After leaving the hospital, Posey headed straight back to Aldbourne. The journey was long but numbing, in a way. Her head seemed to buzz when she rested it against the window and the sounds of the train trudging on around her were loud enough to silence the fatalistic thoughts. When she set foot back in the quiet countryside village, night was falling.

The silence was unsettling at first. She seemed to acknowledge for the first time that she'd been surrounded by noise for so long she'd almost forgotten what quiet sounded like. Even in the middle of the night she couldn't escape the voices of her platoon, mumbling in their sleep or snoring. When she found her way back to the barracks she found herself missing their chaos. She wondered distantly what Roe would say when he saw her whenever he got back. And what Johnny would say, too. She could only pray they had continued to keep her secret, even expecting her not to return as they were. 

She dreaded having to tell them what had happened.

She went through the motions that evening in a daze, not really registering any of the interactions she had. She looked but didn't see, listened but didn't hear. She had somehow managed to settle herself into a state of numbness, a haze that felt reminiscent of each time she woke up after a night of heavy drinking, memories of conversations echoing around in her head but too distant to recall properly. Everything seemed to have a distance to it. Perhaps it was better that way.

When she woke up in the morning she endured a blissful minute of disorientation. She looked around the near-empty barracks, occupied only by herself and another few stragglers who'd decided not to stay the night in a hotel in London, wondering where she was.

When reality hit her, it hit her hard. 

Yesterday, everything had fallen apart around her. Now she had to pick up the pieces.

She threw her ODs on over her PT gear, resenting the cold of England for the first time since she'd gotten back and longing for the heat of Georgia, and trudged to a nearby field. She had a view of the horizon from where she sat in the grass, the sun's early light painting the sky in brilliant hues of orange and red. Despite the biting chill in the air, it appeared today was going to be beautiful. The fact that the world would dare to shove its beauty in her face when she resented having to see it felt like another punch to the gut. She had never before hated a sunrise.

She didn't know when she began to cry.

Her sobs started off quiet, the force of silent tears dragging them out of her against her will. She stared straight ahead, gaze unwavering, and watched as the sunrise became a blur of warm colours, a sharp contrast to the cold of the wind. She was suddenly conscious of the damp on the grass seeping into her ODs where she sat but resisted all urges to shuffle around to escape it. She dug a hand into the ground and wrenched out a handful of grass and mud, only to let it fall back to the ground. She pressed that same dirty hand to her chest as her sobs became louder, more desperate. Wails that refused to be contained. She dug the other hand into the ground and tore out more of the earth, throwing it back down again immediately afterwards. Her and the world weren't getting on right now. Not now that she didn't have a proper place in it.

She didn't know how long she sat there for, clawing at the ground and throwing what she snatched right back down at it again, sobbing loudly into the chill of the morning breeze and swearing when her breath caught on a lament.

Of all people, it was Bill Guarnere who found her first.

"What the fuck?" were the first words out of his mouth.

For some reason, this only made her cry harder.

When Guarnere next spoke there was a note of wariness to his voice, as though he was attempting to lure a frightened cat down from a tree. "Wells?"

Posey didn't reply. She buried her face into her filthy hands and tried to muffle her sobs as much as possible. They still seemed incredibly loud in the quiet of the morning, guttural and primal and heartbroken. She couldn't have kept them in if she'd tried. It was as though the sobs had been living inside her from the moment she'd left home and just now they had decided they'd been contained for too long. They were coming out loud and unfiltered and she'd just have to let them.

"What's wrong?" Guarnere spoke again. He sounded closer now. Posey imagined him with his hands outstretched in front of him, as if afraid she'd lash out, his eyebrows furrowed and his knees bent. In reality, when she shot the smallest of glances back over her shoulder he was simply standing there, looking down at her. He'd gotten closer but he wasn't approaching anymore. His eyebrows were furrowed, though - that part, at least, she'd gotten right.

"Everything's wrong," she managed to choke out. She turned back around and shoved her face back into her hands as soon as the words were out. Guarnere, of all people, did not need to see her like this. He did not need another thing to hold against her.

He didn't badger her any further, though.

Posey sniffled as she listened to the sound of muffled retreating footsteps on the grass and let out a quiet sigh in between two wailing sobs. She wasn't sure whether she'd wanted him to stay or leave but didn't hold herself accountable for not coming up with an answer. In her current state, she just was. There were no reasons for what she thought or felt and there didn't have to be. When the world was falling apart around her, why would she need to explain herself?

Keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she clutched her knees against her and rested her forehead atop them. She could feel her sobbing losing momentum and for once just wanted to keep going. She wanted to cry out every last bit of emotion until her soul was entirely numb. Then she'd be able to think up a game plan and decide what to do. She needed the emotions gone.

As she sobbed, quietly now, into her knees, she felt a tentative prod at her shoulder. She froze. The last thing she needed was for someone else to find her.

Posey lifted her head slowly and when she turned she was gazing into the eyes of Teddy. She glanced up at Guarnere and couldn't help but laugh, a sad, tinkling sound. He was peeking down at her with something hopeful in his eyes, a cautious smile on his lips as he held the teddy bear out towards her like some kind of peace offering. She mustered her best smile and took it from him. She sat Teddy in her lap.

"Thank you," she murmured, and meant it.

Guarnere lowered himself to the grass, taking care to maintain a sizeable distance. This was, after all, unchartered territory for them. They had before only ever communicated in insults and snide remarks.

"My mom's dead," Posey said into the silence that followed. She surprised herself with the words. She wasn't sure what it was about Guarnere at this particular moment in time but his presence made her want to confess something.

"Fuck," he said.

"My brother lost his hand and all his toes."

_"Fuck."_

"Yeah."

"He's a pilot, ain't he?"

Posey glanced at him with thinly veiled surprise. "You remember that?"

Guarnere brushed her aside. "I got a good memory. Don't take it as a compliment or nothin'."

In spite of herself, she giggled. She thought maybe she might have heard him laugh too. "Right," she said, her words smiling, just like her lips were.

"Can he still be a pilot?" Guarnere asked, refusing to draw his eyeline away from the horizon. Posey wondered whether he was doing so to maintain some semblance of animosity between them and ensure she was aware he wasn't really interested in her life, or whether it was the other way around. She wasn't sure which of these she wanted it to be.

"No," she replied after a pause which lasted too long to be natural. "He'll be in hospital for a while but after that he'll be jobless. I suppose I should be glad that means he'll survive the war, though."

Guarnere appeared at a loss for words and Posey flushed in spite of herself. She set her own eyes back on the ever-brightening sky and mentally berated herself for being so candid with him. What was he supposed to say to that?

"I'm sorry," was what he came up with. "About your bother and your ma, too."

"I suppose this is end of my childhood," she commented by way of reply, tugging at the grass again. She didn't want his sympathy so she chose not to acknowledge it. Keeping her eyes on the sky, she shrugged. "It's probably about time it ended."

"That mean you ain't gonna pull faces next time you drink a beer?" Guarnere teased, seeming to be unable to help himself. Even though he wasn't looking at her, he did an enthusiastic impression of said faces towards the sunrise. "Actin' like someone just fuckin' kicked your dog or somethin'."

Posey couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe when you eventually grow up you'll stop strutting around bars challenging everyone to drinking competitions," she shot back. "You act like King Arthur searching for a new knight to add to his court."

"What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Posey laughed loudly. "It means you're obnoxious and arrogant when you're drunk." She grinned as she watched him in profile. "Though I suppose much the same could be said of you when you're sober, too."

"Fuck off, Wells."

"I'll try my very best." She rolled her eyes. "Will you make my excuses when they try to get me for desertion as a result? Inform the brass I was only doing so under orders from the sergeant of my squad?"

"Fuck _off_ , Wells."

"You first."

And thus natural order was restored to the universe, if only temporarily. Posey squeezed Teddy's paws and turned back to watch the sunrise once more, trying to lock the image into her mind. She didn't, after all, know how many more of them she was going to get to see.


	29. Church

The paratroopers' 'quiet night' that Sunday evening, intended for scouting out the local pub in Aldbourne, was always destined to be anything but quiet. Posey had been dragged along by an insistent Luz, much against her will. She had all but dug her heels into the cobblestoned road to avoid a fate of pretending to be cheery all evening. Alas, it had all been to no avail. Luz had been stubborn and undeterred by all of her objections.

Quietly, Posey was so adverse to the idea of going because she knew she'd have to explain to Roe and Johnny why she was back, whenever it was she saw them. She also knew this would most likely transpire when the noise was loud enough to avoid eavesdroppers - thus, a pub was the perfect setting for such a tête-à-tête. But she didn't want to cry in front of either of them, and especially not in front of the rest of the men, either. Recalling how Guarnere had found her crying still sent flames to her cheeks and made a certain sickness settle into her stomach, weighing her down as though it were lead. The indifference she'd felt towards him seeing her cry had long since vanished, replaced by a steely fire of mortification that bubbled up from her toes whenever she looked at him. So, she stopped looking. And, whether intentionally or otherwise, she had taken to avoiding him at all costs.

The evening air was cold on her face, bringing a flush to her cheeks and making her ears sting as she followed a group of the men to the pub. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets and hunched in on herself, smiling for a moment as she considered what her mother might think if she saw her like that and then missing a step when she remembered that her mother was gone.

If any of the men around her noticed her falter, they didn't acknowledge it. Posey thought perhaps these men were better at keeping their mouths shut than she'd initially given them credit for.

When Skip pushed open the door to the pub, the warmth from inside hit her in the face like a sharp slap she might've once received from a governess. She shuffled inside, propelled forwards by the current of movement around her, and broke off from the group immediately to catch her breath. She shrunk in on herself in a corner, keeping her eyes shut as she breathed in deep breaths.

She remembered sharply how she'd felt when she'd set foot in that American bar for the first time back in Toccoa, how much betrayal she'd felt punch her in the gut. She'd resented the Americans for their jollity when Britain was falling apart.

Now, she saw that she'd been foolish. She'd been protective of a country that clearly didn't need her defences. The England she had been imagining, the England she had left behind, had been mourning. It had been sobs in the street and the wailing of bombs, grey concrete scattered everywhere where it had been thrown up into the air and grey faces worn thin from the rationing.

Standing there now, watching the bustling activity of this small, countryside pub on a Sunday evening, it was difficult to believe she was in England at all. This England was unrecognisable.

She felt betrayed anew but in an entirely different way. She'd dreamed of coming back home. Longed for it. Sighed for it from the depths of her soul. She'd wanted to come home more than she'd ever wanted anything in her entire life, and she was by no means a perfect saint where asking for things was concerned. But all she'd found since she'd returned was spite. Her home was gone, her mother dead, her brother wounded and jobless and spiteful, and what did her country have to show for the tragedy it had brought her? Smiling faces and pints of beer and open fireplaces burning without apology.

There were blackout curtains still, but no one watched them with a wary eye as though waiting to hear a bomb on the other side of them any minute. Just as there was still rationing, though no one here was having to take in their clothes because of it.

"Wells?"

Posey jolted in place. Still somewhat lost in her own thoughts, she was dragged to the surface by the harsh, interrogating eyes of Johnny Martin.

"Hi," she said eventually through gritted teeth.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"When did you get back from London?" she asked instead of answering the question.

"An hour ago. What the fuck are you doing here?" His voice went up in volume when he repeated his question, though she saw he realised it when he shot a quick glance back over his shoulder to make sure no one had overheard. They hadn't.

Posey shrugged, trying her best to bottle up the rage boiling inside of her. She was angry at the world, and having to explain her situation to an accusing Johnny Martin was fraying her patience. "The universe is against me. I'm here to stay."

"What the fuck does that mean?" he demanded.

"My home's been bombed, my mum's dead, and my brother's wounded so the RAF won't let him back in. And, of course, my dad doesn't want anything to do with me. So I'm the fucking breadwinner now. Does that explain it adequately for you?" She could feel the burning intensity of her eyes as she met his glare with equal fire. It was a dangerous game to stare back at Johnny Martin like that. She thought she must be the only person in the world to have ever gotten away with it.

"I'm sorry," he replied eventually. He looked like he really meant it. His glare wavered and his expression softened, though she couldn't discern how, for his features didn't seem to move.

Posey stared back at him for a moment before offering a nod, her anger fizzling away almost as quickly as it had arrived. "Thanks."

"So you're staying with us then?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "At least they won't get me for desertion."

Johnny scoffed out a laugh. "Ain't there any other way you can make money? You really gotta go to fuckin' war?"

"My brother seems to think so." She looked down at her hands and worked to dig out some of the dirt from beneath her fingernails, likely the remnants of the mud she'd gouged out of the earth that morning when she'd been working to uproot some of the ground that had faltered beneath her. Out of spite, perhaps, though she hadn't entirely realised she'd been doing it at the time.

"He alright? Your brother?"

Posey let out a bitter bark of laughter, then coughed to cover it. She couldn't believe such a horrible sound had come from her mouth, a sound filled with such disgust. She shook her head. "As alright as he can be, I suppose. He's just lost his hand and all of his toes." She looked Johnny in the eyes once before turning away again, settling her eyes on a half-empty pint of beer someone had left sitting alone on a sticky wooden table. "He's different to how I remember. He got angry really quickly, gave me orders like I'm one of his crew. He's an officer, so I suppose that makes sense."

"Oh yeah?" Johnny asked. She sensed he wanted to turn her attention away from negative thoughts of the only family she had left.

"Mhm," she hummed, eyes glassy and heart hammering as she registered the fact that he really _was_ the only family she had left. Her voice was strained when she added, "He's a flight lieutenant. _Was_ a flight lieutenant." She shook her head. "Commanded a squadron of two sections, A and B. He was a pilot, too, of course. Fighter, not bomber. He flew Hurricanes."

"You gonna see him again before we jump?"

"When are we jumping?"

"Who knows?"

Posey laughed a little bit. "Maybe. It was difficult to see him like that - not wounded, I mean, but... cold. Distant. I didn't really recognise him."

She wondered whether that would end up happening to her. Whether John might come and visit her as she laid in a hospital bed of her own one day, having come back from the frontlines, and not even recognise the person staring back at him. She visibly shivered.

"Let's get you a drink, huh, Wells," Johnny said. It was phrased as a question but not inflected like one.

Posey nodded and let him lead her to the bar, wherein he ordered her a beer and paid for it too, batting away all of her objections.

She sipped at the drink gratefully and followed Johnny over to sit with Bull, grateful, for once, to be away from the hub of attention where Luz was performing an impression of Sobel. She didn't much feel like laughing tonight. She didn't know if she ever would again.

She didn't end up seeing Roe until after they returned to the barracks, all a lot more drunk than they'd intended to be (but perhaps just as drunk as they'd realistically expected to be). For all he was a man of few words, he had an incredibly expressive face, and Posey saw the dawning realisation in his eyes the moment they landed on her. Emotions flitted through his eyes like the pages of a book left out in the wind, an entire spectrum of thought from surprise to sorrow to sympathy.

Posey, not much in the mood to have another conversation about how much her life had been destroyed, offered him a shrug and a sad smile. He seemed to accept this as the full extent of the explanation he'd get and Posey was glad. She didn't know whether she'd ever been more grateful to have found a friend in someone so mellow.

During training the following morning, Posey felt that she was a God in her craft. She wasted no time at all at the firing range, firing off bullets at targets at lightning speed and promptly replacing her magazines. Focusing on pinpoint accuracy gave her something to concentrate on other than the seeming constantly deteriorating state of her existence, and the frustration she felt when she missed was an outlet for her anger at the world. She still felt incredibly resentful of England but tried to reason that people couldn't just wait around for a grave to fall into. Was it selfish of her to feel betrayed that life back home had picked back up without her? Or was she justified in feeling hurt that people were celebrating a life that had been stolen from her?

With every question she couldn't answer, Posey fired another clip at the target until she was hitting her bullseyes every time.

If she was going to war, she supposed, she'd be going with the intent to take down every bloody Nazi she laid eyes on. She didn't want to die, but she didn't want them to live even more than that.

"Who lit a fire under your ass today, Duckie?" Toye wondered as a group of the riflemen trotted towards the mess hall.

Posey shrugged. "Firing bullets is a good hangover cure."

"Can't say I agree," Hoobler commented. "Fuckin' bullets sound like they're rattling around in my skull."

Posey laughed. "Well, if you fire off enough of them then eventually they don't sound so loud."

"That sounds like something you should see a doctor about," Tipper drawled. She only rolled her eyes in reply.

As she sat at dinner that day, letting the tidal wave of sound wash over her without bothering to tune into any conversations, Posey wondered whether the constant urge to scream would ever die down. She'd thought the pain would dissipate gradually with each day but she only found it growing stronger as reality crashed down over her. She still couldn't quite comprehend that her mother was dead, or that she'd have nowhere to go home to after the war was over. The fact that she was now lying in wait to go to war hadn't even begun to settle itself as a feasible idea yet. She almost feared her reaction once her initial numbness to her situation subsided.

When Luz spoke to her she heard her reply as if listening from another room. To her own ears, she sounded like a ghost of herself. Everything around her had adopted a muted quality without her realising, as though she was experiencing everything through a memory in her mind's eye and not in real time. As soon as her words had hit the air she couldn't remember what they'd been anymore, nor the question they'd been in response to.

Posey excused herself from dinner early and took the time alone to walk through the centre of the village. She hadn't seen it properly yet, between training and then vaulting off to London on her first weekend pass, but now that she was taking the time to look she thought it was rather nice. She thought maybe she'd like to live there after the war, if she happened to survive it.

She found herself wandering into the village church and taking a seat at one of the pews, bowing her head and praying for the first time in years. As a child she'd always felt guilty when she'd prayed simply to ask for something, had always vowed to pray more regularly if what she'd asked for came true. This time she knew she would keep her promise. Other than God in prayer, she didn't know who else to talk to. She didn't know of anyone who would understand, that was. But she thought that God must have seen his fair share of suffering and if she was asking him to take hers away from her, maybe she should talk to him about it first.

She sat in the church for hours, lips moving as she confessed her story silently. The weight she'd hoped would be lifted off of her shoulders in doing so only seemed to hang more heavily over her afterwards, the admittance bringing with it some semblance of recognition that this really was _her_ life, but she felt like she was back in her own body again afterwards. Sound seemed to return to full volume. Colours returned to full brightness.

Posey wandered back through the streets of Aldbourne feeling more bare than she'd felt in a while, under her constant veil of secrets as she was. She wondered whether any of the men would see the change she felt so consciously, whether she'd appear as undressed as she felt.

However, when she set foot back in the barracks no one batted an eye. She didn't know whether to feel disappointed about this, or relieved.


	30. Irises

It took a while for Posey to find her footing again after all that coming back to England had changed. She felt lost for a while, a passenger seat spectator in her own life. She found herself floating through weeks on end, retreating into herself whenever she wasn't training and having to be coaxed into social interaction otherwise.

Her only respite, ironically, came when she went to visit her brother. Despite his lack of enthusiasm at her first visit, Posey found her way back to the RAF General Hospital on her next available weekend pass and let out a long breath when she found him exactly where she'd left him - not, of course, that she'd really expected him to move, but she could never be too careful with how volatile life was at the present.

"Posey," John greeted when he saw her, once again reading a folded newspaper.

"John," she replied, and, unlike last time, dragged a chair over to sit at his bedside.

"I can't say I was expecting you," he admitted, though without any hints of regret or disdain in his voice. Instead he sounded curious, as though wondering why on earth she'd want to visit her last living family member.

Posey ducked her head and shrugged bashfully at her lap. "I missed you."

John didn't reply, but when she risked a glance up he was gazing straight forwards and smiling just slightly. In response, she smiled to herself too - she sensed that he reciprocated the sentiment but just couldn't show it. She didn't hold that against him.

"How have you been?" she ventured tentatively, unable to keep her eyes from darting down to where his right hand had once been. Though the blanket hid the damage, much like it had last time, she still felt her heart drop looking at where his hand ought to be. She couldn't even imagine how much it had hurt - how much it likely still hurt.

John shrugged, staring straight ahead still. "Fine," he replied. "Recovering, albeit slowly."

Posey nodded and twiddled her thumbs, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip. "Are any of your crew here, too?" she wondered. Not thinking, she glanced behind her to scan the other beds in the ward as though she'd recognise any of the members of his crew even if she saw them. She'd never met them - and, come to think of it, didn't even know their names.

"No," John snapped, his voice hard. She turned back to face him immediately but he said nothing more.

Posey glanced at him once before turning her eyes to the blanket he sat under, which she found she longed to reach out and touch just as much as she had last time, but she still refused to satisfy the itch. Eventually, John's sigh broke through her idle thoughts. "Well," he amended, "one of them is." He cleared his throat. "Daniel. My wireless operator."

"Daniel," she repeated under her breath. Louder, she said, "I wanted to be a wireless operator, when you first left for training."

"I know," John said. A ghost of a smile flitted over his lips and disappeared just as quickly as it came. "You wanted to be _my_ wireless operator, if I remember correctly."

"No," Posey protested, though it was perfectly true. But she'd never told him that and had no intentions of admitting it now. "I just wanted to be a wireless operator." She sighed, somewhere between a longing exhale and an indignant huff. "Anyway, they don't let women out on combat flights."

John laughed. The sound was abrupt in the wake of his monotone. "They don't let women be paratroopers either."

Posey rolled her eyes. "I did that out of desperation, not because I wanted to. I don't think I would have stayed otherwise." She shook her head. "It was _hard_. Is hard. Harder than I could have imagined. Harder than you're imagining, too, no doubt."

"I'm sure it was hard," John replied. "I've heard paratroopers are some of the best."

Her heart swelled with pride, though she tried not to let it show. _She_ was part of that. Of 'some of the best'. When had she ever been counted as among the best in anything? A hand came up to fiddle with her expert marksman badge absentmindedly, and a smile tugged at her lips. Somehow, the military hadn't been so bad for her so far.

"Anyway," she said, not wanting to be taken for juvenile should John notice the traces of pride still lingering on her face, "where is Daniel? Your wireless operator?"

John shrugged. "Haven't seen him. He's in a different ward - not an officer, is he. But one of the nurses did some digging for me and told me he was here. I didn't ask any more questions than that."

"What about the rest of your crew?" Posey knew she shouldn't be asking but she was too curious. She knew his navigator, Henry, was his best friend. He'd come back from his first few months of training gushing about him, just before Posey had been evacuated. She couldn't imagine the sadness he must have felt if he'd lost his best friend.

John coughed once and then cleared his throat. His eyes took on a vacant look, something glazing over the surface and making him appear farther away than he was. It was a few moments before he replied, "Missing," in a voice barely above a whisper. Immediately, he cleared his throat again and said louder, "Missing. Somewhere in France."

" _Occupied_ France?" Posey asked, her own voice quieter than she'd intended.

"All of France is occupied now," John replied irritably. "No more Free Zone. Surely they know that over in America?"

Posey shook her head as though to clear it. "No. Right. Of course."

John carried on speaking as though she hadn't spoken. "Of course that means they're as good as dead now, anyway. The Nazis are offering civilians a lot of money to turn downed airmen in, and with the conditions over there you can hardly blame 'em for doing it. So it's just Daniel and me now."

"Don't say that," Posey said, hoping to inject more confidence into her words than she felt. "I'm sure there are at least a few people who'd want to help. French people don't like the Nazis, after all."

"But they like starvation even less, I should think."

A heavy pause settled over them. Posey didn't know what to say - it was clear John knew a lot more about the war than she did, and arguing with him for the sake of optimism was only seeming to prove her naïveté. John, for his part, seemed to be stuck in his own head. He stared straight ahead as if having forgotten she was sat there at all.

Abruptly, into the silence, Posey spoke, "I want to say goodbye to mum." She surprised both herself and John with the words.

"What?"

"A proper goodbye," she said. "Do you reckon they'd let you out of the hospital for a bit?"

"Probably not, no."

Posey sighed but forced a smile. "Then we'll do it here." Her smile became watery and she forced back the sting of tears. She found she'd become rather good at doing that. "I think we need to say a proper goodbye to her. Together."

To her surprise, John looked at her and nodded. "Okay."

"Really?"

"I'm allowed out once a day, and usually they take me out back into the gardens. They're rather nice. We could go there."

Posey nodded, feeling overwhelmed by emotion all of a sudden. Sadness and longing and nostalgia and love. Maybe he was still the brother she remembered, just hardened a little bit.

When a nurse came to check on John she gave them the all clear and led them out into the back gardens, which were, as John had put it, rather nice. In fact, Posey would even have gone as far as to say they were beautiful. Sitting atop a bench facing a seemingly endless lake, flanked by rows upon rows of bushes filled with different types of vibrant flowers, she knew her mother would have loved it there.

She gazed about herself for a while, letting the stillness settle over her. They weren't the only people out there - a few other wounded airmen were wandering around and sat at benches in the gardens, too - but everyone talked in hushed tones. It seemed the type of place to warrant quiet. The birds even seemed to chirp quieter, their singing less insistent and more gentle.

Posey turned to John with a soft smile. "Irises," she said, gesturing to a bush of irises a ways away from them, off to the left. "Mum's favourite."

John looked to where she'd gestured and smiled too, a muted version of the bright smile he'd used to wear on occasion. "It's perfect, then."

Posey hopped to her feet and approached the bush quickly, making quick work of plucking out two irises before walking back to the bench. When she sat back down she offered one to John, who laughed. "You're good at that," he said. "The sneaky stuff."

Posey laughed too and shrugged. "I've had lots of practise."

The pair sat together silently for a while, letting their thoughts surround them like the smell of the flowers on the wind. Posey got lost in her memories for a while, remembering her mum in their own garden at home, before she sighed and dragged herself out of her thoughts.

"Time to say goodbye, I think," she said, and looked to John for his agreement.

John nodded, staring out across the lake. "Me too," he said quietly.

When they stood, Posey held onto John's arm tightly as they approached the edge of the lake, the fence surrounding it keeping them from getting too close but allowing them close enough to peer down into the water. Posey looked up at the sky, at the single clear blue day they'd had in a while, and drew in a deep breath. When she looked back into the water she whispered, "Goodbye, mum," and dropped her iris. In her head, she added, "I miss you," and her eyes followed the flower floating away from her.

"Bye, mum," John echoed, and dropped his iris too. His emotion was audible in his voice, as was how hard he was straining to contain it. Posey offered him a watery smile and led him back to the hospital.

When Posey got back to Aldbourne, she felt lighter somehow. More sure of herself. She held her head high as she wandered the village, until she ran into one Lieutenant Nixon.

"Private Wells," he said, smiling as though she was just the person he'd been wanting to see. He approached her appearing increasingly glad to have run into her. "Fancy seeing you sere."

"Lieutenant Nixon," she said, saluting. When he gave a half-hearted salute back she dropped her arm and stood at attention until he laughed.

"At ease, private. I'm off the clock." He inclined his flask towards her, dark eyes glinting in his amusement. "As, I think, are you."

Posey nodded, feeling uneasy under his gaze. She felt he was laughing at a joke she hadn't been let in on - one, perhaps, that was even at her expense.

"Can I help you, Lieutenant?" she asked, desperate to be dismissed so she could retreat to the safety of the barracks. She'd never spoken to Nixon one-on-one before, hadn't even been sure that he knew her name, but apparently he had noticed her, which likely didn't bode well.

"Yeah," he said, nodding to himself. He took a sip from his flask and then nodded again. "Yeah," he repeated. "Wells, off the record, is there something you wanna tell me?"

Posey was sure all colour drained from her face. Her heart raced. Warily, she replied, "Is there something you want to hear?"

Nixon laughed and nodded, glancing away for a moment before looking back down at her again. "Yeah, I think so."

"Sir?" Posey wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers and immediately wished she hadn't, for his eyes followed the movement.

"Relax, private," Nixon said, chuckling in that easy way he always seemed to, as if unbothered by the world. "I'm just wondering why you're still with us."

"Sir?" Posey asked, her voice stiff. "I'm not sure I - sir, I don't think I follow."

"Now that we're in England, I mean," Nixon elaborated, as though that should have been obvious. "British girl like yourself, I thought you would've gone home by now. I didn't take you for a thrill seeker, is all."

Posey had gone entirely still. She was sure her blood had stopped pumping. She daren't even breathe.

"Wells?"

"Oh my God," was all she could say. Then, realising her error, she tacked a squeaked, "sir," to the end.

Nixon laughed and patted her firmly on the shoulder. "Look, I'm not gonna tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about." He rolled his eyes jovially. "Especially Dick, 'cause he's a great guy and all but I don't know how he'd feel about taking a girl into combat under his command. You know what he's like."

Posey didn't - not really - but she nodded anyway. Winters was her platoon's officer, it was true, but that didn't mean that she knew him. She knew him about as much as he knew her, which was to say, not at all. Not _really_.

"But why are you still with us? I assumed you were just trying to beat the other evacuees back home."

Posey's jaw fell open. Did he know _everything_?

Nixon laughed. "I read your file, came up with nothing, did some digging, did some observing -" he clapped his hands and then held them out as if to say _voilà_ "- came to a single viable explanation. Am I right?" He lowered his hands and leaned towards her conspiratorially, mischief dancing in his eyes. "I'm right, aren't I? Come on, Wells, tell me I'm right."

"I'm not sure I can do that, sir."

Nixon brushed her aside. "Well, anyway. Why aren't you staying home? The thrill of the army too addictive? The acceptance and camaraderie too alluring?" His face fell and then brightened in the space of a single second, excitement overtaking his every feature. "You fall in love with one of them?"

"What? No!" Posey exclaimed, then rushed to add, "sir," again. Nixon laughed, and before he could speak again, she explained, "My home was bombed and my mum along with it." It never got easier to say that. "My brother's wounded and the RAF won't let him back in. I don't have a choice but to stay which is why I desperately need you not to tell anyone, sir. _Please_. Sir."

Nixon nodded and took another sip of his flask. "Sure. I wasn't planning on it. It's nothing to do with me." He took another sip and capped it, adding in a lower, more sincere tone, "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what happened. But you can trust I won't tell anyone."

"Can I?"

Nixon's smile reached his eyes when he grinned. "Do you have a choice?"

Posey shook her head and wrung her hands together before Nixon took a step back. He levelled her with a steely gaze before smiling easily once more, his hands fiddling with his flask. "You know, you don't look much like a boy."

"Thank you, sir."

"You've done a pretty good job at hiding it, though." He offered an approving nod and then turned on his heel, beginning to walk away. After a few steps, however, he turned back and offered a smile. "Wells," he said, and inclined his head.

"Sir," Posey replied, and snapped a salute.

Nixon rolled his eyes and brushed her away before turning and retreating once more.

Posey stayed watching him until he was out of sight, feeling as though she'd just run a marathon with the struggle to get air into her lungs. She ran the conversation over and over again in her head, trying to make sense of it and how he'd found out. On her way back to the barracks she debated with herself about whether or not she could actually trust him, and then resigned herself to the fact that he'd been right, and she had no other choice. After all, how long had he known and not told anyone? Surely he had to be trustworthy. He'd given her his word.

She collapsed onto her bunk feeling drained of all energy and stared up at the ceiling of the barracks deep in thought. She supposed she had managed to find herself another ally, and a powerful one at that, and could only hope that he'd prove himself loyal. There was little she could do else.


	31. Mutiny

Christmas came and went in a blur. Posey saw her brother once, a few days before the day itself, but he insisted she not visit him on Christmas Day. He'd said she should spend it with her platoon, a bid to strengthen the bonds between them now that she would be going to war with them. Everything out of John's mouth when she visited seemed to be about preparing her for war; he spoke about trusting the men beside her, steeling herself to not think about the killing she would be doing, and not taking any day she got to live for granted. Their two kinds of combat were different from each other though, he noted, and made sure to drill into her that she would no doubt see and experience some horrors during her time in combat.

Posey returned to Aldbourne from the hospital feeling as though all the life had been sucked out of her. She wasn't sure John had even mentioned the fact that it was Christmas once, so dead set on discussing warfare as he was.

When the new year rolled around, all Posey felt was dread. It was 1944 and the war didn't look like it was going to be ending anytime soon. She'd hoped - foolishly, she'd be the first to admit - that the war might end before she ever even had to venture overseas. Instead of whispers about an end in sight, however, the only whispers she heard were about a potential invasion of mainland Europe the Airborne were set to be figure-heading.

Training picked up rather than slowed down; the damp and freezing British winter weather didn't seem to bother their higherups in the slightest. And with the increased fervour of their field training, Sobel seemed to only become more irritable and less competent.

Whilst the enlisted of the company formed a united front against him - in private, of course, though it wouldn't have taken much of a critical eye to discern their dislike - tensions brewed amongst the officers; Winters became more and more open about his mistrust of Sobel as a combat leader when they were doing field exercises, reorganising positions and tactics to accommodate for Sobel's ineptitude.

Everything seemed to come to a climax on one particular field exercise when Sobel had led one half of the platoon astray. Winters had changed the tactics of the two squads he was presiding over, Guarnere's and Lipton's, to ensure they got the most out of the exercise even with half of their men missing in action, and, out in the middle of nowhere, Luz had apparently done a spectacular impression of Major Horton to gull Sobel into getting them moving. Whilst this had made for an incredible story in the barracks that night - which had Posey wishing anew that she'd been put in a different squad that she might have experienced the gulling firsthand - Sobel had gotten into trouble with Major Strayer as a result. Consequently, Winters had gotten into trouble with Sobel. Whether that was what the court martial report said, however, was a moot point. Either way, Winters was barred from his duties as Second Platoon's officer and the company's executive officer.

"Sobel's court martialling Winters and now Second Platoon is without a competent fucking officer," Toye ranted to the barracks. All of the company's NCOs were holding court somewhere and the measly privates amongst them were left to mull over the news they'd thrown at them before leaving. "Winters is the only thing keeping Second Platoon's head above water - hell, the whole damn company's! - and that bastard puts him on mess detail?"

"Yeah, Sobel's a bastard," Penkala replied evenly. "This ain't news."

"Yeah, well that bastard is gonna be leading us into combat without a buffer zone to keep any of us alive!"

"Sobel would've gotten us killed regardless," Posey said from her bunk, shrugging. "Winters is a good leader but that doesn't mean much when Sobel does as he pleases anyway and overrules him."

"Fucking damn it, you're not understanding what I'm saying!"

"We're understandin' you just fine, Joe," Luz put in from his place on the floor at the bottom of his bunk. "But there ain't nothin' we can do about it."

"Just gotta hope the NCOs have got a plan," Skinny commented from his place in the doorway. When Posey glanced over at him he had one shoulder raised in a shrug.

"Does anyone know what they're discussing?" Posey wondered, fiddling with a thread on her ODs where she sat cross-legged on her bed. She gazed up at the ceiling as she added, "The Winters situation, obviously, but are they actually coming up with a plan?"

Toye sighed loudly. "I don't know, Wells. I know just as much as you do."

Posey shrugged. "Guarnere might've told you something."

"With his loud mouth? You'd have heard it."

She laughed brightly in response. "True."

The NCOs didn't reappear for hours, but when they did all of them bundled into Second Platoon's barracks, which had at some point been deemed the hub of all enlisted E Company activity. None of them looked very cheery but, of the lot of them, Ranney particularly looked the epitome of a wet weekend.

"Where the fuck have you guys been?" Liebgott demanded the moment the last of them was through the door.

"Harris is being transferred out of the regiment," Chuck Grant informed them in the silence that followed.

"What? Why?!" David Webster, of First Platoon, where Harris had been an NCO, exclaimed.

Instead of giving an answer, Ranney said, "Yeah, and I've been fuckin' busted to private."

"Why?" Liebgott asked this time.

"We were tryin' to save this company's ass, that's why," Ranney spat. "Harris and I organised a mutiny, got all the NCOs to sign sayin' we didn't wanna serve as NCOs anymore. Sink wasn't happy."

"Of course he fucking wasn't!" Skip burst out through a laugh. Posey wondered whether he ever didn't find things funny. "You manage to get Sobel out, at least?"

"We don't know," Guarnere grumbled, elbowing his way to his bunk.

"You could've been shot for mutinying," Posey said. She knew all too well how trigger-happy the US Army could be when its soldiers didn't seem to be following rules adequately. Whilst there was nothing in their rules on girls pretending to be boys to get in, she knew they had no issues shooting young men for desertion or mutiny.

"Yeah," Johnny snapped, "we know."

"What did Sink say?" Luz wondered aloud.

"He said we're a disgrace to the entire fuckin' 101st," Guarnere all but growled. He threw himself down onto his bunk and crossed his hands beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. "Tell ya who the real disgrace is, the fuckin' CO who's got his head so far up his ass he gets motion sickness when his stomach rumbles."

Posey had to clap a hand over her mouth to contain her laugh, though a sputtered giggle made it out into the air. Guarnere shot her a glare. "Somethin' funny, Wells?"

"No," she said through her hand. She dared not lower it lest her grin get her into more trouble. "I'm not laughing."

"Well it ain't fuckin' funny," Ranney butted in. "Harris is packing his stuff as we speak and I've been busted down to private trying to save this company. And it could'a all been for nothing."

"It might've worked, though," Shifty from First Platoon put in with something hopeful in his tentative smile. "We just don't know yet."

"Well, I ain't holding my breath," Johnny said with an eyeroll.

"When'll we find out?" asked Perconte.

Johnny turned eyes like fire on him. "I don't fucking know, Perco! Go ask Sink yourself if you're that interested!"

"Does Winters know you did it?" Posey asked Bull, the NCO who happened to be standing closest to her bunk and also the least likely to lash out at her for asking.

Bull turned to her and offered a half-smile. "I think he suspects."

Posey nodded and chewed on her bottom lip as she thought the situation over. The conversation hadn't progressed much by the time she wondered, "Could you speak to Nixon, maybe? They're friends, right?"

"Nixon's hard to get ahold of these days," Tab replied, arms crossed where he leant against the wall opposite her bunk.

"Only as hard to get ahold of as Winters," she countered, recalling her last, and indeed her only, interaction with Nixon. "When Winters isn't with us he's with Nixon, walking around and such."

"If you see him so much why don't you fuckin' ask him, Wells?" Guarnere sniped.

Posey shot him a sharp look. "I'm only trying to help."

"Well don't," he growled back. "Ain't shit you can do."

"Oh, fuck off, Guarnere."

As Guarnere went to reply so did multiple other people until the barracks became composed entirely of noise. In the effort to be heard, voices were raised louder and louder until no words could be made out above the sheer wall of sound, simply volume and tone. Arguments seemed to brew in every direction, the stress of an imminent debut into combat making tensions reach boiling point. Just when Posey thought she'd never be able to hear herself think again, one voice cut cleanly through the chaos.

"Enough!"

All eyes shot to Lipton, who had moved to stand in the doorway and was levelling the room with a steely glare. He was the only man who would have been capable of such a feat - well, him and perhaps Winters - and only because he was so well-liked. It was rare to see him lose his temper, so they all quietened down immediately.

"If we're gonna get through this we're gonna get through it together," he said, taking care to look each of them in the eye as he spoke and scanned the room simultaneously. "Now, we've just gotta trust that whatever happens and whatever decision Sink makes will be for the good of the company. It's out of our hands and the best we can do is make sure, as a company of enlisted men, we're as good as we can be. In everything. We're composed of damn good soldiers and equally good leaders all on our own but it won't mean anything if we don't face it together." He gave one final, meaningful look to each of them before stepping back into the crowd again.

"Remind me why Evans is our First Sergeant," Luz spoke into the loaded silence that followed Lipton's speech. Just like that, the tension in the room dissolved.

The majority of First and Third retreated to their own barracks after that and left Second in a comfortable quiet. Conversations, even held at normal volume, seemed especially soft with the sounds of bedlam still ringing in Posey's ears. For her part she didn't engage in any, simply observed, until Luz's voice carried over the sounds of conversation, addressing her from the floor at the foot of the bunk beside hers.

"I miss Toccoa," he declared, stuffing a cigarette in his mouth and promptly lighting it. "You miss Toccoa?"

Posey shrugged. "A bit, I suppose." She cocked an eyebrow at him and turned to face him fully, keeping her legs crossed and folding her hands in her lap as she leaned forwards. "Why do you miss Toccoa?"

"Eh," Luz began, apparently trying to assume an air of nonchalance, "it was so easy back then. All feels so real now, huh?"

Posey laughed softly to herself and nodded. "Yeah," she agreed, "it does." She knew he couldn't even begin to comprehend how true that comment was in her circumstances, but somehow a weight seemed to have been lifted slightly in having someone else acknowledge that they were scared, too.

"You miss home?" he asked next, his voice slightly strained around his cigarette as he puffed on it.

Posey smiled sadly and looked down at fiddling fingers. "I miss lots of things."

"Oh yeah?" When she looked up he had an eyebrow quirked, curious. "Like what?"

"I miss..." she began, and trailed off as she attempted to pull everything she longed for into a list. "I miss Christmas, the way it was when I was small. And sitting on my dad's knee. And my family. And good food. I miss... enjoying things," she said with finality, a way to summarise the majority of the rest of the list.

Luz laughed quietly to himself. "Yeah, me too." He shook his head and laughed once more, but it was sadder this time. "Shit, me too."

"Yeah," Posey said, and offered nothing else. For some reason, combat had never seemed closer than it did at that moment. She wondered whether, when she got there, she'd miss sitting on her bunk in the barracks, too.


	32. Luck

"Do the men not wonder where you're going when you come here?"

Posey's face fell at the words. She didn't know why she continued to get her hopes up that one of these days her brother would be pleased to see her, but every time he managed to trample those hopes within mere seconds of her arrival.

"Perhaps," Posey replied, dragging a seat to John's bedside and lowering herself into it. "But they don't ask so I don't see that it really matters."

"What will you say if they do ask?" John challenged, shifting to face her as much as he could in his hospital bed. He was still sitting bathed in sunlight, just like the first time she'd visited, though the ethereal quality she'd first felt struck by had never appeared to her again. Instead, the light looked like it was stripping him bare, revealing to her all of the flaws she'd never noticed before, or perhaps simply not cared to look for. Sat there, watching her closely with an expectant expression settled onto his face, he seemed just as flawed as everyone else. Just as human, too. Just as dead when his time ran out, just like she would be when hers did.

"I'll say I've been visiting relatives," Posey replied as promptly and smoothly as she was able, hoping to prove to him that she'd already had everything worked out. In truth, there were still details she hadn't thought to iron out and this was one of them, but she prided herself on being a quick liar. This time, it seemed, John was convinced that she'd been organised.

"They know you're British, then?" he went on to question.

Posey shook her head. "They know mum's British. They think I'm from Boston." She shrugged and gave a noncommittal gesture of her hand towards the window, as though brushing the conversation out of it. "I've worked my story out, John, it's fine. I've been doing it longer than you've known I have. You needn't worry." She was always surprised by how quickly a conversation with John could resurface her old, boarding school-educated way of speaking. She always had to take care to shake it off before returning to Aldbourne. "Anyway, how are you?"

"Fine, considering," John replied, as blunt and unfeeling as he could manage, it seemed.

"Any word on rehabilitation yet?" she wondered, fiddling at the bedsheet until he grunted, indicating he wanted her to stop. Before, he'd always slapped her hands when they fidgeted, or slammed a hand down on her leg to stop it from bobbing up and down. Now, when she sat on his right, he had to content himself with audible cues. It was always sobering when he did it, reminding her that his hand was gone and that it wouldn't be coming back. She thought that perhaps all war was, really, was a means of taking as much as possible from as many people as possible until they eventually surrendered. She wondered what else John had lost, beyond his hand and his toes, that she couldn't yet even begin to comprehend. She wondered whether one day she'd know that loss all too well herself, even more intimately than she did already.

"No."

"Soon, I'm sure."

"It's likely."

A stagnant pause settled over the pair, their silence only broken by a nurse coming in to check some of John's vitals. When she left, Posey rushed to speak, fearing her imminent dismissal, for that was always how it went - she left when John told her to, when he'd had enough of her, and never a moment before.

"Have you managed to speak with Daniel yet?" She was referring to his wireless operator, the only member of his crew he knew the whereabouts of because he was also in hospital. 

"He's dead," John said, eyes set firmly on the wall in front of him. "Complications in surgery."

"When?"

"Yesterday morning."

Posey's eyes welled with tears, though she hardly knew why. She'd never met Daniel but for some reason her heart ached.

"That's a shame," she said quietly, her voice weighed down by emotion. John nodded and said not a word beyond that.

"Any word on the others yet?" she asked softly, treading carefully lest he lose his temper with her again. After the first time, she'd tried to avoid that particular happenstance like the plague.

"No."

"That's a shame," she said again, and wanted to kick herself for it. Did she have no other words in her vocabulary?

"It's a bit more than a shame," John replied, laughing bitterly all the while. He shook his head, still refusing to look at her. Instead, his eyes were on the nurse recruitment poster pinned up on the wall, even redundant as it was in a military hospital. The woman on the poster smiled back at the Wells siblings as they looked at her, a doorway to another world not so dissimilar to their own, though tainted blue as opposed to red.

After a short pause, John spoke again. "You'll know what it's like soon, don't you worry," he said, his monotone making the words sound more like a threat than a prophecy. "Then we'll discuss it."

"Don't say that." Her words were a breath above a whisper.

John barked a laugh, finally setting his eyes on her. "It's the truth. You can't hide from it any longer, Posey. You're going to war."

She always felt so bare under his gaze. Suddenly, she wished he would turn it back on the anonymous nurse whose smile never faltered. In contrast, she felt hers would never resurface.

"I know."

"Then act like it."

"I'm trying!"

One sharp look was all it took to silence her protests.

"Everyone expects an invasion of the mainland any day now. Know anything about that?"

"They won't tell us, lest anyone leak the information."

John nodded. "Of course." He had that look in his eye, the one he used to wear when they were children and he'd discuss boarding school with her. He used to shine with pride as he boasted to her all of the life experience he had that she didn't, allowing himself to bask in her admiration. "It was always like that for us, too."

Posey looked away. She didn't want to admire his experience in this.

"Made friends with your platoon, have you?" John asked, seeming genuinely curious in her answer for the first time since she'd gotten there. "Your company?"

"Yes," Posey replied, fiddling at the bedsheet once more, unable to help it. "I made friends with them ages ago, back where we first trained. I'd say we all know each other quite well now."

John laughed. "Aside from the fact they don't really know anything about you."

"They do!" Posey flushed when she realised how enthusiastic her protest had been. "I mean, whilst my voice is different, and my accent, and they think I'm a boy, that doesn't mean they don't really know _me_." She chose not to mention the fact that three of the men knew her secret. She knew John wouldn't be at all pleased with her about that, especially seeing as one of them was an officer.

John chuckled to himself. "I never thought I'd find myself discussing war with my baby sister."

"You're the one who insisted I stay in the army."

"We haven't a choice, Josephine."

"Lets not start this again." Her voice was sharper than she'd ever dared let it become when addressing John. "I'm doing as told, aren't I?" John didn't reply, so she added, "I do hope you don't feel terribly guilty if I don't return."

"I'm not expecting you to."

She felt as though she'd been slapped. She'd tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and make his excuses for his coldness, battle-worn and hardened as he was, but his nonchalance about the entire affair, his unfeelingness, stung.

"What a spiteful thing to say," she said. She hated how audible her tears were, even though she refused to let them fall.

"Not spiteful," John corrected. "Realistic."

"Well," Posey began, rising from her chair and smoothing down imaginary wrinkles in her trousers. "I suppose we'd best get down to the final goodbyes, then. Take a good look at me, John, because it may well be the last time."

"Posey -"

"Goodbye, John," she bid him, levelling him with a gaze as steely as she could make it. He didn't look so pleased with himself now. "Thanks for the advice."

Before he could say another word she turned on her heel and stalked towards the entrance to the officers' ward, hearing her heart in her ears and feeling her throat burning with the effort of holding back tears. It was only when she was seated on the train back to London that she let herself cry, tears that she kept silent and secret against the window. She realised she'd forgotten to take a good look at him, herself, to try to lock his face into her memory. She wished she'd have thought to ask him for a photograph from home, the one she knew he'd always had taped to the controls of the planes he flew. For luck, he'd told her in his first letter as a fully-qualified RAF pilot.

She shook the thought from her head. Luck was arbitrary. And anyway, she had Teddy. He would have to do.

When she made it back to Aldbourne it was quiet, many of the men likely getting ready for a night in the pub. Posey found herself not much wanting company at the present and drank in the peace while she could, wandering the streets in the centre of the village and gazing mindlessly at the buildings she passed. Evening was coming, and soon there would be no light across the village, blackout curtains shut firmly against the world. She hated night-time in Aldbourne for how much it reminded her of London during the Blitz, but the men didn't seem to care much. They'd remarked on it briefly upon returning from London for the first time, how the entirety of England managed to go pitch dark at night; she'd told them the entirety of Europe went dark at night but even then they hadn't understood what that really meant. She never had managed to fully quell her resentment for them as a result. 

Turning a corner, Posey came upon a woman washing the windows of the pub the enlisted frequented. The woman must have heard footsteps for she turned as soon as Posey had seen her. 

Posey offered a smile. "Good evening."

"Evening," the woman replied easily. "Don't think I've ever seen one of your lot alone." The comment was good-natured and she offered another smile before turning back to her cleaning. 

Posey chuckled to herself. "We do tend to travel in packs," she admitted, smiling. "Would you like some help?"

"If you're offering." The woman seemed to produce an extra rag out of thin air and handed it over promptly, kicking the bucket of soapy water until it stood between them. "Thank you, private," she offered before turning back to her work. 

Posey shrugged. "It's the least I can do. I know a lot of 'my lot' will be over here later, causing the usual trouble."

The woman laughed. "It's good money. Can hardly complain."

"No one would blame you if you did."

They fell into idle chatter after that, during which Posey learned the woman's name was Mrs. McGavigan and she owned the pub. She ran it by herself and had some of the local girls work behind the bar, though apparently she'd had to recruit a few more to help with the added workload now that an entire company of American troops were liable to drink them dry. Her husband, she revealed only once she had seemed to deem Posey trustworthy, had died in the previous war. Mrs. McGavigan had paused after admitting this, watched her hand where it had stopped its circular movements on the glass with a glaze over her eyes. When she turned back to Posey she wore a sad smile, as though she'd just experienced a memory so vivid it had taken her away for a moment, and she wasn't so pleased to be back in the present. 

"You know," she began, speaking quieter than before, "we knew all you Yanks were coming here long before you arrived, and I was dreading it. Loud, brash, arrogant Americans who came into the war too late, just like last time, but were still happy to take their share of the glory. Who needs it?" Posey laughed quietly along with her - she'd thought much the same of the American population in the beginning - before the woman sighed and admitted, "But you lot break my heart, you do."

"Why?"

Mrs. McGavigan's eyes were tired and her face seemed to age a decade over the course of a mere few seconds. When she spoke again she looked like she was crumbling under the effort of trying to inject some cheer into her words. "We've been at war a while over here, and everyone's exhausted. We're sick of it. But you lot have come over and you're all so... excited - bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so ready to be heroes. You all remind me so much of the lads from the last lot. Same age as me, they were, and when war broke out they were just as excited as you all are. Seemed like something interesting was finally happening to them."

"Your husband, too?" Posey wondered softly. "Do we remind you a bit of him?"

She nodded. "You remind me a lot of him, all of you. He was excited. Not to leave me behind, mind you, but really he was just excited about life." She sighed. "He was young. _We_ were young. Naïve. We didn't really know what war meant, especially not one like that."

She went quiet and turned back to her work after a few moments, seeming to forget about the conversation they'd been having, or pretending to. Posey didn't ask any further questions and when the work was done she gave Mrs. McGavigan a smile and was on her way back to the barracks. Distantly, she wondered whether the late Mr. McGavigan had had a good luck charm with him when he'd left home but the thought was pushed from her head when she was greeted by Second Platoon in the prologue of a night out.


	33. Tents

The air was thick with nerves as soldiers seemed to pour out of transport vehicles in all directions. Upottery Airfield had likely never been so packed. Posey wondered briefly if this was what the German airfields might have looked like before they invaded Poland and started the war. There was a curious sort of triumph to that thought - that they would be finishing the war the same way the Germans had started it.

Upon Lipton's belted command, Posey began to help set up tents to serve as barracks along with the rest of her company. For all that nervous energy surrounded her in a million discernible ticks and jitters, for her part she was mostly stoic. Her storm of nerves brewed internally, turning her thoughts to a whirlwind and her stomach to mush. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought that the time had almost come for her to drop into occupied Europe. They still didn't even know where they'd be going. France seemed logical, though surely they'd be on the other side of London if that was the case, closer to the south-east coast?

She shook the thought from her head. It wasn't for her to worry about.

She kept her head down as she worked to put up the tents, a distraction from the anxieties which threatened to make her throw up her breakfast. True to her word, she hadn't visited John again after last time, leaving their tense final goodbye to be just that: final. Suddenly, she regretted that decision, if not in order to tell her last remaining family member that she loved him then to ask him if he'd felt the same before his first sortie, back when the Battle of Britain was brewing. She struggled to imagine him as anything but calm, collected, and courageous, but deep down she knew he must have been scared. The thought calmed her, in a way.

Once the tents were erected they all shuffled into the tent serving as a makeshift mess hall, put up before they'd arrived. Reserved only for Easy Company though it was, there seemed far too many men in there for it to be her company alone. She supposed nerves made people chatty, and they could be jumping tonight for all any of them knew, as blind to where they were going and what they were doing as they had been walking for twelve miles in the pitch black back at Toccoa. That felt like a lifetime ago now, it seemed to Posey. How much they all had complained about those night marches and running Currahee seemed laughable and so, so trivial. On the brink of invading Europe, there seemed to be an infinite number of things Posey wanted to take back and redo, and that was only considering the past two years of her life.

At least, she thought, Sobel wasn't in charge anymore. After the NCOs' mutiny, Colonel Sink had transferred him somewhere else. None of them knew where, other than it wasn't anywhere near them and that was good enough. In his stead, their new CO was First Lieutenant Meehan, who Winters seemed to like well enough so, by extension, Posey did as well. She'd only met him a few times and he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, at least - not that Posey deemed herself a particularly suitable judge of paratrooper commanding officers, but he was better than Sobel. Anyone would have been, really.

"Alright, Duckie?" Bull asked from across table she'd slumped down at, drawing her out of her reverie. She'd been gazing down into her plate of food, pushing it around tiredly with her spoon. At the sound of her name her head shot up and she had to blink away the bleariness. Once her vision settled, she nodded.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah." She knew he'd been looking for a better answer than that, a seemingly instinctively paternal figure as he was, but that was all she had to give him. He didn't pry for more, either way.

"What do we reckon then, fellas? Jumping on Berlin?" Tab questioned the table at large as he slammed his tray down and squeezed into a seat on the bench beside Posey. He immediately took a large bite from the bread and chewed as he looked between the faces gathered around him.

"This soon? No way," Liebgott replied, a scoff making its way into his words. "France, almost definitely."

"I was thinkin' maybe Italy," Toye put in from Posey's other side.

"Nah, too far," Luz decided. "France."

"I wonder when it'll be," Ramirez commented mindlessly, pushing his food around much the same as Posey was. In truth, all of this mindless speculation was doing nothing to calm her nerves and might even have been making them worse.

"Must be soon, or they wouldn't fuckin' lock us in," said Guarnere from beside Bull. Posey wondered distantly whether he was capable of saying a sentence that didn't include the word 'fuck' or some other variation of profanity but still said nothing. She remained sat hunched over the table, staring into her food but not really seeing it as she pushed it around her plate.

"Duckie, what do you -"

"I'm going outside," she said abruptly. The words had vaulted from her mouth before she'd even realised she'd made the decision. "Whoever wants my food can have it. 'M not hungry."

Once outside, the world felt big again. Inside a tent that crowded it was easy to forget that the entirety of the universe wasn't contained within this one airfield. For the first time in the past hour, Posey let out a deep breath, and took care to inhale the chill of the breeze. Evening would be creeping in soon, and then it would be back to the mess tent for dinner. She wondered whether she'd even go - it felt like she'd never have an appetite again with how the nerves swirled relentlessly around in her stomach.

"Wells," began a voice from behind her, just emerging from the tent. "You okay?"

Posey nodded but didn't turn back to look at Johnny. Into the air in front of her, she said, "I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

Posey shook her head and gave a bitter gasp of laughter. "Of the jump. Of what comes after. Of all of it, the whole thing."

Johnny came to stand beside her and shoved his hands into his pockets. He nodded as he looked out at the rows of tents laid out before them, too - a small village where there hadn't been one yesterday.

Eventually, he said, "Everyone's scared." Posey didn't know whether she'd ever heard his voice sound so soft.

She shrugged, toeing the ground in front of her with her boot. "I know," she admitted quietly, following his lead and burying her own hands into her pockets. "I just never thought I'd be here. I feel like I haven't had enough time to think it through." _Not that there's anything to think through, really,_ she thought distantly. Her hands were tied on the matter.

"Listen, Wells, you're gonna be fine," Johnny told her, turning to face her and staring her profile down. Posey's resolve lasted mere seconds under the intensity of his gaze before she faced him, too. "Alright?" Johnny asked, all of the previous softness his voice had had a distant memory.

She nodded but didn't say anything. Her words were stuck in her throat.

"What was that woman's name? The one who took you in when you were evacuated?"

Posey's eyebrows furrowed, wondering where he was going with this. Warily, she replied, "I never told you. To protect her."

Johnny brushed her aside nonchalantly. "Right. Well, you should write to her."

"Why?"

"Have you told her yet? Have you written her a single letter since being in England?"

"No." Posey didn't know whether he was deliberately trying to make her feel guilty, but it had happened nonetheless. She'd tried multiple times to write to Mrs. Daniels but words failed her every time. Eventually, she'd decided to say nothing at all. Maybe it would hurt the old woman less to think Posey had gone home and forgotten her than to find out she'd died in combat, as her brother expected her to. She shook her head, feeling the need to defend her decision all of a sudden. "I couldn't explain all of it properly anyway. The army reads all of the letters and they'd know -"

"I know, Wells. I'm not saying you need to tell her. I just think it might make you feel better. She's your family now."

Posey stilled, her eyes stuck on him as his words repeated themselves over and over again in her head. Johnny shifted on his feet, seeming confused as to what he'd said to warrant such a reaction. After a few moments, Posey turned to face the endless rows of tents again. "She's not my family," she said quietly. "She won't want me back after the war, if that's what you're thinking. If I survive it, that is."

"Have you asked her?" Johnny accused.

Posey scoffed. "You know I haven't."

"Then don't put words in her mouth."

Posey huffed and crossed her arms. "My brother doesn't expect me to survive anyway, so there's not point in thinking about it. I'm a lost cause as far as he's concerned."

_"What?"_ Johnny's voice was sharp. Suddenly, she regretted her admittance.

Posey shrugged, attempting to assume an air of indifference. "That's what he said."

"Did he mean it?" Johnny demanded.

Posey shrugged once more. "He's not the type to say things he doesn't mean. He's not a liar like me."

Johnny sighed. "You ain't a liar, Wells." Posey shot him a look and he huffed a reluctant laugh. "Okay, maybe you are, but not willingly. And it don't make you a bad person. But your brother saying something like that to you makes him a fucking asshole."

"He means well."

"No he fuckin' don't." Johnny laughed bitterly, almost disbelievingly. "He wouldn't have said that if he meant well."

"He's seen combat already," Posey argued. "He knows more than us -"

"Does he know more than God?" Johnny let the question hang in the air for a few moments before he went on. "Does he know everyone who's gonna live or die in the war? Huh?"

"No," Posey mumbled, her eyes on her shoes. She felt very much like she was back at school and being reprimanded by a teacher for some mistake she'd made or other. But Johnny, at least, meant well. This she knew to be true.

"You're gonna survive, Wells," Johnny said, his voice devoid of any uncertainty. "You survived up to now, didn't you? Proved me wrong. Probably yourself, too."

Posey nodded. "Yeah," she muttered, pensive.

"Then prove your asshole of a brother wrong too," he said simply. He added nothing more but didn't make to leave. Instead, he crossed one foot over the other and drew out a pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and promptly lighting it.

He didn't offer Posey one, and she didn't want him to. She didn't think she was desperate enough to disappoint her mother further just yet. At the moment she thought she'd already disappointed her thoroughly enough. Instead, she stood with Johnny in silence, watching the sky thoughtfully and listening to the muted sounds of the men inside the mess tent. She'd be going to war alongside those men, and perhaps one of them would end up being the last face she ever saw.

Posey watched Johnny in profile for a few moments and felt a tiny smile drawing up her lips. Maybe there were worse ways to die than alongside friends. She wasn't ready to go yet, didn't really think she ever would be, but there were worse ways to go. She could only hope that, when the time came, she'd feel the same.


	34. Night

On H-Hour, D-Day, their destination was Normandy, France. They would be jumping behind enemy lines, just as they'd been trained to, in order to take out German guns aimed at Utah Beach to enable easier beach landings. Posey ran through the objective over and over again in her head, repeating it like a mantra to ensure she didn't forget. Then, when she tired of that, she ran through the names of roads and bridges and rivers and every discernible landmark she had picked out from the sand tables. They had all been told to study the sand tables closely to ensure they could navigate Normandy should they miss their drop zone. For her part, Posey had studied them relentlessly, her anxiety gnawing away at her until she was making sure that going to see them was the last thing she did at night and the first thing she did in the morning.

She'd been scared in the Blitz, but she didn't think she'd ever known fear like this.

Where she sat with the rest of the men set to be jumping from the same plane as her, she stared at her hands. She looked up only briefly when Roe handed her her airsickness pills, one to be taken now and one when they were in the air, and then resumed her staring again. She took the pill, swallowed without water, and listened to the noises of the airfield around her. This might be her last time on home soil.

Winters addressed them all briefly, Posey didn't hear a word, and then he was helping them all up from the ground one by one. When it was her turn, Posey finally drew her eyes up from the ground and looked into his. There was something reassuring in his eyes, something hopeful, but still uncertain. She forced a tight-lipped smile and moved along to let him help the next man along up.

When she sat in the plane, waiting for the engine to start, everything seemed much too quiet. No one spoke. Everyone had retreated back into their own minds, some form of self-preservation perhaps, and bore their evils alone. Beside her, Toye seemed to be reckoning something with himself; his lips moved rapidly but no sound came out. Or perhaps Posey simply couldn't hear it. The quiet seemed artificial somehow, as though maybe she was the only one experiencing it. She had only ever known loud when surrounded by all of these men.

Then came the noise.

When the pilot started up the engine, the world roared to life around her. Where there had once been silence there was now uproar. It took a while for the plane to begin moving, and when it did Posey's heart leapt up into her throat, as though trying to make a bid for freedom.

As the plane lifted off of the runway and became airborne, Posey began fiddling. Everything she had on her to fiddle with, she did. She thought briefly of her stowaway teddy bear tucked safely into one of her inside pockets, pressed tight to her underclothes, and wished she could take him out and squeeze his paws as she'd done as a child. It seemed only right that he was sitting that close to her heart, though - everything she'd experienced in her life, she'd experienced with him by her side. Now they would be heading into war together. She worried briefly what would happen to him if she didn't make it home.

They were in the air for a couple of hours, which felt like a couple of weeks. When the red light came on, signalling they were close, Winters clipped his chinstrap closed and rose to his feet, as unceremoniously as if he was leaving church after a service.

Into the rattling cacophony of the cabin, he belted, "Get ready!"

Posey, along with the men surrounding her, held up her clip. She fumbled it for a moment, her hands shaky and slick with sweat, but quickly held it up once more. She wondered how worried she looked, how much her face was betraying.

"Stand up!"

Posey rose unsteadily to her feet and slotted into the line. Staring at the back of Popeye's head, she wondered whether this might be a good time for some famous last words.

"Hook up!"

Nothing came to mind.

"Equipment check!"

She wasn't sure anyone would hear her over the noise anyway.

"Sound off for equipment check!"

A firm pat on the shoulder told her it was her turn.

"Four okay!"

She tapped Popeye on the shoulder and listened until Winters shouted his, "One okay!"

They were all thrown sideways.

Whatever had hit them had hit with a vengeance. Bangs rang out across the metal and light rushed in through the open doorway. Orange light. Posey would recognise that particular light anywhere; the fire of bombs still haunted her nightmares.

She scrambled to her feet, dragging herself up by whatever she could get a grip on. When she stood in the line once more, they were all unsteady on their feet. The plane felt like it was being hit from all directions, throwing them this way and that. A sob ripped its way from Posey's throat but she never heard it hit the air. They were thrown forwards and then wrenched backwards again.

_I'm going to die_ , she thought.

"We get any lower, we ain't gonna need any friggin' parachutes!" Skip cried from behind her. She glanced back only momentarily to see him braced up against one of the windows, staring down at the ground outside.

The glass right by him smashed and he was thrown backwards. Posey gasped and grabbed for him and he shot her a shaky smile.

"Lucky bastard," she shouted, trying for a smile. She didn't know how he could have heard her but he smiled anyway. Maybe he hadn't and simply needed the action as much as she did. Smiling might make it all seem okay.

The sound of glass shattering and the red light turned green. Posey turned back to face the front and let out a redundant sob once more.

"Lets go!" Winters shouted.

_This is it, this is it, this is it._

She shut her eyes tight and leaped into the darkness, the air rushing in her ears and slapping her in the face.

The sky was alight all around her, parachutes and planes illuminated by flames and explosions. She wondered how she was ever supposed to make it to the ground. A lot of them, it seemed already, weren't going to.

_Had Jonathan been this scared when he'd had to bail out of his plane?_

When her parachute unfolded she held on tightly to her risers, trying to steer as best as she could in the midst of chaos.

Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, her blood rushed in her ears, and her eyes scanned a dark sky made bright by the worst kind of light - all of these were signs of the life that ran through her, a life she wasn't ready to let go of just yet. Only now did she recognise how truly afraid she was to die. Not afraid of anything, her brother had always said of her. Many a time during her teenage years he'd told her she could do with being a little bit more afraid, reckless as she was. Now she knew that, whilst she wasn't afraid of much, she was afraid of dying.

She hit the ground so slowly she didn't even have to roll. It seemed the sky was making up for its chaos by lowering her down gracefully, offering her safe deliverance. She worked to unclip her parachute with fumbling, shaky hands, her eyes glancing in every direction meanwhile. As soon as she had it off, she bundled it into her arms and ran with it. It was only when she was on her feet that she noticed half the weight she'd carried with her onto the plane was gone.

She should have listened when Guarnere had insisted that the leg bags were a bad idea. Why had she stuffed so many things into it? Things she needed, no less. She knew why, but it seemed so childish now she could hardly bear to admit it.

Because it was a British invention.

With the sky still flashing above her, she ran into the trees nearby and hid her parachute amongst the bushes. Glancing around, she found herself alone, and took inventory of what she had managed to keep on the jump.

No rifle, no compass, no cricket - no nothing, it seemed. She felt around her webbing until she grasped hold of her knife and sighed in relief. It wouldn't do much good outside of close-range combat, something she knew she needed to avoid at all costs if she wanted to stay alive, but it helped to make her feel safer at the very least.

Standing on the edge of the trees, she turned in circles wondering where to start. The sky above was still a world of chaos, gunfire and aeroplane engines and explosions masking the silence she found herself in on the ground. Another pathetic sob wrenched its way out of her mouth and she slammed a hand over it to cover the sound immediately. This was a warzone. She was behind enemy lines. She had to be quiet, invisible. She could _not_ cry.

"Just find someone," she muttered under her breath, so quiet she didn't hear it herself. She turned from the field she'd landed in, having scanned it to find anyone else, and crouched. She made her way through the trees silently, her eyes sweeping from side to side, front to back, and her ears straining for sounds.

"Just find someone," she repeated breathily, feeling more and more vulnerable as the minutes ticked by. The back of her neck prickled with the feeling of runaway eyes. She turned but found no one.

_Am I even going the right way?_

The forest got denser the deeper into it she pushed. The darkness seemed to swallow her. Even the noise from above seemed to soften. Her footsteps became louder as she pressed onwards.

She lifted a hand to her chest and felt for Teddy, pressed snugly to her chest and holding on for dear life. A loyal friend. At least she wasn't entirely alone.

She kept one hand on him, a way to calm her racing heart, and the other on the dagger she had stretched out in front of her.

Taking one step after another, she allowed the night to swallow her, hoping, praying, she'd come out the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for how terrible i've been with updating recently!! i'll get better, promise!! <3


	35. Cards

Ending up as a prisoner of war was a problem Posey hadn't considered prior to landing in occupied France. Now, though, it was all that was on her mind. She wouldn't be able to hide the fact that she was a woman then, she was sure, and she didn't dare imagine what the Germans would do when they found out.

She knew she shouldn't think about it - after all, she had enough to worry about already, lost in where she hoped was Normandy without having seen a soul for hours - but her mind ran away from her. She couldn't seem to make it stop.

She'd stuck to the trees for the better part of what she thought might be two hours, though in the middle of the night with no sign of the sun beginning to rise it was impossible to know for sure. Eventually, she convinced herself she'd never get anywhere by sticking to the trees - she needed to get to Sainte Marie du Mont, and that was a village, not a forest - and lowered herself to the floor, army crawling across a field until she found herself at a rivulet.

For a person who seemed to make exclusively terrible decisions, all she seemed to be doing today was having to make more of them. Should she cross the rivulet or stay on this side? Go upstream or down? Her head spun trying to decide which would be the best option, all the while her ears strained to listen for voices. If she could find one person, just one Allied paratrooper, she knew she'd feel a lot better. For now, she was lost; with no gun, no compass, no map, and no watch, she could've been wandering around in circles, or worse, the completely wrong direction, for all she knew.

She crossed the rivulet, stepping over it in one go to avoid having water seeping into her boots - she did _not_ need to squelch her way across Normandy and be found by the enemy that way, that was perhaps the worst way to be found she could think of - and dropped down onto her stomach again. Then she crawled, and crawled, and crawled, desperately thankful for that PT course back at Toccoa. It was serving her well now.

Posey had no idea how much time had passed, but as the sky began to lighten she found her elbows buckling underneath her, her forehead slamming into the ground. She must have been crawling that way for hours and she still hadn't come upon any sign of life. As she lay in the dirt - head pounding, sweat dripping out of her hair and down the back of her neck, muscles screaming - she came to the only viable conclusion: she'd gone the wrong way.

She let herself rest for a while, panting into the earth and forcing back the tears which stung in her eyes. After what could have been fifteen minutes or could have been three hours, she pushed herself back up onto her elbows with all of the strength she had left in her and crawled the last few meters into a set of trees. Only then did she let herself sit up and take a proper look at where she was.

The sky was a patchwork of hazy yellows and tentative pinks, just beginning to lighten and still working to chase the dark blue of night away. The day was going to be hot by the looks of things; the sun was only just visible but the humidity was stifling. Posey tugged the collar of her ODs away from her neck and sighed at the rush of cool air hitting her wet skin.

Opposite her lay a field, seeming somehow even more endless now that she was looking at it than it had when she'd been crawling through it, her head down and breath heavy through gritted teeth. The thought that she would have to cross back through such a wide open space, and in the light this time, had a sick, heavy feeling settling into her stomach. She dug her hands into the damp soil and wrenched out handfuls of dirt, throwing them both immediately back down again and then repeating over and over. She was staring into space, the weight of her exhaustion finally beginning to settle and make her eyelids feel heavy, when a knife was pressed to her throat.

"Qui êtes vous?"

"Oh my God."

"Anglais?" the deep, gravelly voice questioned in response to the mistake she recognised too late.

Posey hummed her affirmative, then gasped. "No, American."

She heard movement behind her but kept her eyes firmly forwards, keeping as still as possible lest the blade pierce her skin. It was already pressed close enough she was certain it would leave a mark - only the slightest bit of further pressure, she was sure, and she'd be dead.

"American, ay?" spoke up a different voice, louder and gentler. Unmistakably British. "I'm talking to you, soldier. Are you American?"

"Yes," Posey squeaked, still not daring to move an inch.

The Brit laughed. "We met a few of your lot a few hours ago. You're a long way from 'em, though."

"I know," she breathed.

"Where are you supposed to be?"

"How do I know I can trust you?"

The Brit laughed warmly. "I'm British. What business have I got working for the Boche?"

"What business have you got wandering around in occupied France?" she shot back, breathing in a sharp breath when the knife was pressed closer to her skin. Hyperaware of everything all of a sudden, with all of her senses dialled up now that she'd been found, Posey thought she could feel drops of blood beading across her neck. She deduced the man had done it purely because of her tone; there would've been no need to get a Brit if he could speak English.

"I'm a downed airman," the Brit explained, not seeming to notice the knife pressed to her throat or, otherwise, not seeming to care. "High reward on my head for handing me in to the bastards and I've got no way out of France. Trust me, mate, I want this liberation just as much as you do, probably even more. So where are you supposed to be?"

"Sainte Marie du Mont," she said through a hissed exhalation.

The Brit explained the situation to the Frenchman, and the Frenchman laughed. 

"That's ages away from here," the Brit confessed regretfully. Then there was more French and the knife was removed from her throat.

Posey gasped and pressed a hand to the area immediately, feeling for herself the drops of blood that had broken the surface. She bent forwards over her knees and breathed heavily.

"Sorry about that," said the Brit. "Precaution. You understand."

"Of course."

A hand was offered to her and she stood, turning around warily. When she was face to face with the downed airman she saw his face drop. "Bloody hell," he said, "how old are you?"

"Does it matter?" Posey sniped, still rubbing at her neck.

The airman shook his head. "No, I suppose not." Then he sighed. "We've other matters to tend to, anyway. Like how we're going to get you back with the rest of your division."

"Can you take me there?" Posey asked, gazing up at him hopefully. She found the airman's face didn't much match his voice at all, for his voice was warm and gentle and his face was cold and hard. He was older than she'd initially expected, likely around his early thirties, but the smile he offered her softened him.

"We're going to try," he replied. "Take you as far as we can and then point you in the right direction. We have our own jobs to be doing to help with this whole affair, after all."

"You do?"

"We're Resistance," he explained, gesturing to the Frenchman beside him, who was watching Posey closely with a firm hold on his dagger, and then behind him. A little ways away, Posey noticed two people also watching the undertakings, both of them women. She wasn't sure why that made her feel safer all of a sudden.

One of the women glanced down at her wrist and called out, "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

The Frenchman called back, "On emmène cette stupide américaine à Sainte Marie du Mont."

Posey rolled her eyes but said nothing, watching as the airman explained a bit of their conversation to the women and then turned to her. "Shall we go then?" he said, a teasing smile on his lips.

Posey breathed out a laugh. "Can we? I have no idea what the time is but I've got a deadline to meet."

"Then lets be off," replied the Brit.

For the most part, their little group of five walked in silence. They were led by the taller of the two women, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman who could have been anywhere from twenty-five to fifty; age seemed to elude her. At the back of their group was the smaller of the two, redheaded and largely inconspicuous but for her inquisitive eyes, which seemed to dart about constantly. Every now and then the woman at the front would pause and whisper something in French, which was then passed down the line, before they carried on again.

For her part, Posey didn't mind the quiet. She felt safer knowing they'd be able to hear if the enemy was close - for surely these people were much more experienced in such a thing than she was. She tried to enjoy the lack of responsibility while it lasted; as soon as the group decided they couldn't go any further she knew she'd be on her own again, crawling through fields and holding her breath at the sound of twigs snapping underfoot. For now, she was happy to be led and to trust that whilst she was with these people she was as safe as one could be in enemy territory. She didn't know if this sentiment was at all true, but she had to believe that it was for the sake of her own sanity.

As they walked on, Posey's body began to protest more and more. Even Sobel's intense training couldn't have prepared her for this. Every inch of her sweated and her muscles begged for rest with every footfall. Her thighs felt tight and her calves heavy. Every step brought with it the fear that she'd have to give up, but still she pressed onwards. 

The sun was high in the sky and shining unapologetically when they all stopped. They gathered into a huddle in the midst of a group of trees, the Resistance team talking quickly and quietly as they debated how much further they could stand to take Posey.

Eventually, the Brit turned to her. "We can't take you much further," he said, his apology written across his face. "We'll do maybe another few miles to get you as close as possible and then we'll have to be on our way."

Posey nodded, mustering a smile for him. "Thank you. I'd never have gotten this far without you all."

He brushed her aside. "Yeah, just make sure you shoot down as many of the Jerry buggers as you can when you get back to your division. That'll do us just fine as thanks."

In spite of herself, Posey giggled. "Right," she replied. "I will."

"Good."

They walked on and on until Posey's feet burned with overuse, her muscles cramping and begging for respite as sweat dripped down every part of her body. Her breath came in pants which only served to make her already-parched mouth even drier. When she went to take a sip of her canteen, however, the airman stopped her. She'd need it later, he'd said, so she'd pocketed it once more. Her lips, as a result, were cracked and dry, and her tongue had barely any moisture to spare when it darted out to wet them. When they came to a stop by a bridge she gasped and had to have a drink - she wasn't sure she could carry on without one. The heat was sweltering.

"This is as far as we can take you," the airman informed her, patting her once firmly on the back as she capped and deposited her canteen once more. He explained to her where she was to go from that point on, giving her detailed directions and landmarks to look out for to ensure she didn't get lost again.

After he was finished speaking, Posey nodded. "Thank you for everything," she said, and gave him her brightest smile. Then she turned to the Frenchman and the two Frenchwomen. "Un grand merci à vous tous pour votre aide. Je ne sais pas ce que j'aurais fait sans toi."

The airman's eyebrows hopped up whilst the Frenchman's furrowed deeply. The ginger Frenchwoman watched Posey curiously and the darker-haired laughed.

"I couldn't reveal all of my cards too soon," Posey explained, in English first, for the airman, and then in French for the others. She couldn't help her smile all the while; her boarding school education had never come in so handy.

The dark-haired woman laughed once more and shook her head. "De rien," she said. "Bonne chance."

Posey nodded and offered a smile. "Et à vous aussi."

Knowing that she was getting close to her company was both a relief and incredibly nerve-wracking. She had a few hours to walk yet - how long had she been crawling by herself? How far from the drop zone did she get dropped? - but at least she knew where she was going this time. However, getting closer also meant she was nearing the enemy, and finding herself dead or a POW was a frighteningly feasible fear to her now.

Posey traipsed on well into the evening, crawling where she'd been told to crawl and stopping to take breaks where she'd been told it would be safest to do so. She was halted in place and forced into hiding by the sound of German voices and machine gun fire more times than she would have liked, but other than that found her journey relatively simple. The directions she'd been given had been incredibly thorough, after all. She honestly didn't know what she'd have done without those Resistance fighters.

As the sky darkened, she continued to walk on, ignoring the screaming protests of her muscles and the way her eyelids fought to remain open. She wondered distantly all the while just how many downed airman there were hiding across France. Many of her brother's crew were still missing, and she'd never before wondered what they might be doing, but now she did.

She thought hard on the women she'd met, too, letting her mind wander as the veil of night lowered over her once more. She found herself feeling guilty, all of a sudden, for how much she'd pitied herself and how hard her war had been; now she knew there were people, infinitely many people, whose wars had been far harder. She wondered whether she would have been brave enough to do what those incredible women were doing, and distantly regretted that she probably wouldn't.

But she was here now. And she was helping. Against her will, yes, but with every step closer to her company she found within herself an increasing determination to _fight_. To give back even half of what those Resistance fighters had surely already contributed to fighting for a free Europe. She may not have had a home to return to any more, but if she could save other people from that same fate then she wanted to kill as many Germans as it would take.


	36. Rations

Posey's feet dragged behind her as she made her way into Easy's rendezvous in Sainte Marie du Mont. It must have been the middle of the night by now, the sky a sheet of rich black silk devoid entirely of stars, though there was still activity bustling about the main area. She kept her eyes peeled for a familiar face, wondering whether she was likely to get a reprimand for being so late to the party, when she came upon Lieutenant Nixon. She had never been so happy to see the intelligence officer, for now she knew for sure she was in the right place. Even with the directions she'd been given it hadn't taken her long to worry they'd led her astray. 

"Lieutenant Nixon," she said, her voice emerging much quieter than she'd intended. She'd been aiming to call out to him but her voice, throaty and scratching, had emerged weak. It was only then she realised how thirsty she was and immediately set to work unscrewing her canteen to take a sip. Once she had, she noticed Nixon heading towards her - he must have either heard her weak call or noticed her standing there. 

"Wells," he greeted with a smile and a nod. "Glad to see you."

"You too, sir," she breathed, beaming. "You have no idea how happy I am to see a familiar face."

Nixon chuckled quietly. "I think I might have a slight idea. You look like you've been through hell." He gave a noncommittal gesture to her appearance and Posey laughed under her breath. Instinctively, she brought a hand up to check on her neck and Nixon tracked the movement. "Looks like you had a pretty close encounter."

Posey nodded, letting her hand drop back down by her side; the blood of the wound had dried by now, but it still hurt. "With the Resistance," she said. "I was going the wrong way for hours. They found me and pointed me in the right direction - not before pressing a knife to my throat and interrogating me, though, of course."

Nixon laughed. "Right. Of course." He took a sip from his canteen before speaking again. "A few of the men ran into various Resistance groups on their way in too. Looks like they've been busy."

Posey nodded. "Seems like they've been doing a lot to help with the invasion." She clasped her hands behind her back and decided to bite the bullet. "Sir, am I the last one back?"

Nixon laughed abruptly. He took another sip from his canteen before he replied. "No. No you're not the last - I hope not, anyway, otherwise we're gonna need a hell of a lot of replacements."

"People are still missing?"

"Majority of the company," Nixon confirmed. "Guys've been turning up all night, though. So we're hopeful."

"Where are they?"

"I last saw some of Easy back that way in the back of a truck. That was a couple hours ago now but you might find a few on the way."

Posey nodded, the makings of a smile creeping onto her face. "Right. Thank you, sir."

Nixon nodded. "Alright, Wells." With a nod and another sip on his canteen - which, Posey was beginning to suspect, likely didn't actually contain water - he was on his way, and so was she, in the opposite direction. 

Light discipline was in full effect; there was little-to-no light anywhere, leaving an eerie darkness to settle over the silhouettes hurrying about. Noise discipline likely was, too, though that implementation wasn't nearly as successful. Posey strained her ears to listen for familiar voices and found herself wandering in circles before a voice saying, "Yeah, fuck you, Joe," much louder than necessary carried over to her on the breeze. 

"Guarnere," she mumbled under her breath. Never had she smiled brighter at the thought that Bill Guarnere might be nearby. 

She headed in the direction she thought the voice had come from and found a group of Easy Company men huddled together outside a bombed-out house. Posey tried not to pay too much attention to the house, which looked startlingly like her own had when she'd seen it in rubble for the first time, and instead let herself focus on the proximity of people she knew.

"Wells, that you?" a voice which belonged, unmistakably, to Malarkey asked. 

Posey grinned. "Malarkey!"

"Ay! Wells!"

"Luz!"

"You gonna do a fuckin' role call or are you gonna sit down?" Guarnere heckled, but his words were clearly strained around the attempt to hide a smile. 

"Guarnere!" she exclaimed, just to annoy him. She came and sat with them all wearing a smile so wide it almost hurt. "You guys have no idea how happy I am to see you!"

"Where the fuck you been, Duckie?" Toye asked, covered in dirt and looking exhausted from what she could see of him through the darkness. 

"Yeah, you missed all the fun!" Liebgott teased. 

"You show up by yourself?" Perconte added. 

Posey rolled her eyes. "I've already been interrogated once today and I'd rather not go through it again, if we could all relax with the questions, please."

"Who the fuck interrogated you?" Liebgott wondered, unwrapping what appeared to be a K-Ration and beginning to eat it loudly. His doing so reminded Posey that she hadn't eaten since being in France and all of a sudden she was ravenous. She patted her body down in the search for her rations and swore under her breath when she realised she must have lost them on the jump, along with almost everything else. 

She glanced up and opened her mouth to say so when a K-Ration promptly landed in her lap, having been tossed over from her right. She looked over at Guarnere with a look of mixed excitement and surprise, and he shrugged before looking away. 

"Who interrogated you, Duckie?" Toye asked, drawing her attention back to the conversation at hand. 

She unwrapped the K-Ration and took a bite before considering the question. "Well," she began, only speaking once she'd finished chewing - old habits died hard, "I was going the wrong way for hours. Ended up going far enough that when I stopped for a break I got a knife pressed to my throat, see?" She gestured to her neck which had all of them leaning in close immediately, squinting through the darkness to see the wound. "The Resistance found me, interrogated me, then pointed me in the right direction. That's how I found you guys."

"You been on your own the whole time?" Malarkey wondered.

"Other than with the Resistance group, yeah," she replied, taking another bite and chewing quickly. It wasn't the most pleasant thing she'd ever eaten but she'd take it. "I am gonna sleep so well tonight," she commented, smiling at the thought. 

"Tonight?" Toye echoed. "It's tomorrow, Wells. We'll be moving out soon as it gets light, I bet."

"It's tomorrow?" She must have been crawling for even longer than she'd thought. "Why are you all up then?"

"Me and Luz got back just before you did," Perconte explained, sticking a toothbrush in his mouth and scrubbing away. "Don't feel too sorry for yourself."

Posey giggled quietly and nodded before turning back to her food. Her interest in conversation had disappeared, replaced by a rumbling stomach and an urgency to sleep whilst she had the chance. 

She settled down for the night where she was, laying back on the floor and curling up tight in the hopes of getting some sort of comfort. She was too tired to worry about what tomorrow might bring, or even to reflect on the events of the day, and fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes. 

When she woke she found she was the last one up, all of the others already sat up and eating K-Rations for breakfast. Posey sat up slowly and rubbed fiercely at her eyes. After a moment, she dropped a hand to check on her neck, entirely without her realising. 

"You should go see doc," Guarnere spoke up from beside her, sparing her a single glance before turning back to his food. "He showed up a while ago."

Posey nodded, much too tired to argue, and pushed herself to her feet. 

"Aid station's back there," Guarnere added, gesturing behind them, and Posey nodded once more.

"Thanks," she mumbled around a yawn and earned a nod in reply. She set off looking for Roe promptly, wondering whether she might be able to scavenge some food along the way. 

When she found Roe, seeming to be making use of the quiet to take inventory, she beamed. 

"Roe!"

Roe's head shot up from what he'd been doing and a smile broke out onto his face too. "Wells," he said as she approached, "good to see ya."

"You as well!" she replied, grinning. "I'm so glad you made it!"

Roe laughed. "Yeah, you too." His eyes fell to her neck and she watched as his eyebrows furrowed. In an instant he was a medic once more. "What happened to your neck?"

Posey shrugged with a soft laugh. "Had a knife pressed against it by Resistance fighters," she replied, sitting down where he gestured for her too on the edge of a half-collapsed brick wall. "Only for a bit, whilst they interrogated me. After that they helped me find Easy."

Roe nodded and set to work tending to the wound immediately. "Ain't deep," he said, his face set in concentration as he began to clean it. "You'll have to stay on the line."

Posey laughed and rolled her eyes. "I wasn't intending on coming off of it." She shrugged and then immediately apologised at the look Roe sent her, for the movement had disturbed his work. "I haven't done anything yet, really," she went on as he continued to prod at the wound. "Lost my rifle in the jump. Haven't fired a single shot or even met a single German."

Roe nodded and they fell into a companionable silence after that, listening to the world around them go by. As soon as he'd finished cleaning her wound he stepped back, thoughtful. Eventually, he said, "I ain't gonna bandage it - we ain't got enough supplies to spare and it's healin' alright already. But it starts bleedin' again and you let me know, alright?" His eyes were hard, daring her to protest, and she didn't. 

"Yes, sir," she replied, laughing when he scowled. She hopped to her feet and patted him once on the shoulder before looking around her. "Do you know whether Johnny's back yet? I haven't seen him." Roe shrugged and she sighed. "Well, do you know where I might find some food? Lost all of mine in that stupid leg bag."

He pointed her in the right direction and she was on her way immediately, weaving through various soldiers from various companies in her hunt for food. When she found food she devoured it quickly and immediately wished she hadn't, for this was a warzone and food was a commodity now. The thought was sobering; it was easy to forget she was in occupied territory when surrounded by the men she'd trained with and when she hadn't fired a single bullet.

She made her way through the makeshift camp until she came upon Winters and spoke to him briefly about her weapon problem. She felt a whole lot safer when he found one for her. Finally, she had a weapon she could use with some hope of success - she was a good shot but no one could pretend that she'd fare very well in close-combat. 

When she arrived back at the group she'd spent the night with she found her space from before had been kept for her. She collapsed down into it and took apart her new rifle to begin cleaning it, in the hopes of becoming acquainted in a way. Various men filtered into camp in the time she sat there, though her heart sank every time Johnny wasn't among them. 

Until, of course, he was. 

"Johnny!" she exclaimed, dropping her gun and leaping to her feet when she caught sight of him. She had to consciously refrain from hugging him but could do nothing about the huge grin she wore. 

Much to her surprise, Johnny smiled back, more a smile of relief than of joy but a smile nonetheless.

"Wells," he greeted, and clapped her on the back gently before dropping down into the space beside hers. 

"You took your time," she teased, settling back down onto the floor and resuming cleaning her gun.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well I landed miles from the fuckin' DZ. Had to haul ass halfway across Normandy to get here."

"Yeah, join the club," Perconte drawled, scrubbing at his teeth again. 

Posey decided to take a leaf out of his book; she pried her own toothbrush and powdered toothpaste from where she'd stowed them away safely in one of her pockets, and began to clean her teeth. The activity was so mundane she could hardly believe the biggest day of her life so far was over and she was in the aftermath, sat on the floor in France after having survived D-Day. 

Now, all there was to do was wonder what D-Day Plus One would have in store, and hope she lived long enough to see in D-Day Plus Two. Then, she'd be on her way back home again, as a fully-fledged soldier who had experienced combat.


	37. Revenants

Contrary to Toye's prediction, the company didn't end up moving out at first light. In fact, for much of the day they were left to rest and catch their breath after the nightmare that had been D-Day. Men continued to show up throughout the day, some of them boasting souvenirs - like Tab's German raincoat - but that was all the excitement they experienced for hours. 

Posey remained with the group she'd found the previous day, only ever leaving to find food or to find somewhere extra private to relieve herself (she longed for the days when she'd thought using the bathroom in training had been difficult). Otherwise, she sat resting, and her body was grateful for the repose. Her feet ached something fierce and her calves felt like bricks, and that wasn't even the half of it. With every hour that passed Posey was becoming more partial to the idea of spending the night in that very spot, too, uncomfortable as it had been when she'd woken up. 

When lunch passed she began to sweat again, and decided it was time to let Teddy see a bit of occupied France for himself. He'd been to France with her when she was little and it felt only right that he see it again now that she was grown up. She sat him on her lap and smoothed out his fur, pleased with how little damage he'd sustained even through D-Day. 

"You still haulin' that thing around?" Guarnere asked from beside her, taking a long drag on his cigarette. 

Posey hummed her affirmation before adding, "I'd hardly call it 'hauling'. He doesn't weigh very much, you see."

Guarnere rolled his eyes. "What's its name?"

" _His_ name," Posey corrected, "is Teddy." She braced herself for the teasing. When it didn't come, she felt the need to fill the gap. "He's for good luck," she said, holding onto Teddy's paws and squeezing them lightly. "Do you have a good luck charm?"

"Don't need one."

Posey smiled to herself and turned her eyes forwards, watching idly as Winters wandered away from a conversation he'd been having with Lieutenant Welsh of First Platoon. "Everyone needs good luck from time to time."

Before Guarnere could respond, Welsh was calling out, "Easy's moving out! On your feet!" and they were all scrambling to their feet to listen to their new orders. Posey tucked Teddy back into one of her interior pockets and followed the crowd. Briefly, she wondered why Welsh was the one who was going to tell them instead of Winters, who was now the company CO since Lieutenant Meehan hadn't shown up yet, but stumbled her way over to where Welsh was standing nonetheless; the lethargy she'd hoped had died down now that she'd gotten to rest didn't seem to want to go away so easily. 

"Listen up!" Welsh ordered, inducing silence amongst the gathered enlisted. "It'll be dark soon, I want light and noise discipline from here on. No talking, no smoking, and no playing grab fanny with the man in front of you, Luz."

Posey stifled a giggle; thus far she'd been lucky enough to not have ended up in front of Luz when walking or lining up in an aeroplane, but he was infamous for his tendency to pinch the behind of whichever poor soul was. She generally tried to steer herself away from him in any just such circumstances, for the sake of her dignity as much as for his; one day, after all, he'd likely find out that she was a woman and he'd be absolutely mortified if he'd grabbed her arse at any point. She liked to think she was doing him a favour in ensuring that neither of them ended up in that particular mortifying position. 

"So where we headed to, Lieutenant, huh?" someone called out from the crowd, a voice Posey couldn't immediately place and couldn't be bothered to turn and seek out. 

"We're taking Carentan," Welsh replied. 

"That sounds like fun," Tab commented, and though Posey smiled, she felt her heart drop. Carentan was a nearby town, and if they were _taking_ it, that meant it was currently being occupied by German troops. She was about to see her first lot of combat. She clutched her rifle tighter before wiping off her sweaty palms on her trousers as discreetly as she could. She didn't feel like she was ready to see her first lot of combat at all. 

"It's the only place where armour from Omaha and Utah Beach can link up and head inland," Welsh added, readjusting his ODs and everything strapped onto them. "Until we take Carentan they're stuck on the sand. General Taylor's sending the whole division."

"The whole division," Posey repeated under her breath. That was a lot of men. It must have been an incredibly important objective.

"Remember boys," Luz began, impersonating the aforementioned General Taylor with his usual air of comic showmanship, "give me three days and three nights of hard fightin' and you will be relieved!"

Posey laughed along with the rest of the men, if only to mask how frightened she felt at the prospect of making her debut into combat. As she watched Welsh smile to himself and sling his gun strap over his shoulder, she did the same with hers. She held the rifle close to her chest once it was secured over her ODs, hoping to remind herself that whilst she didn't feel ready, she _was_ ready. She'd completed her training just like everyone else, and, if their stories of what the company had done yesterday in taking down that German artillery battery were anything to go by, they were more than capable of holding their own in the field. She would be too. She hoped.

"Lieutenant!" Hoobler called out, making his way in the direction Welsh had gestured when he'd been speaking. "Lieutenant, I'll take point."

Welsh nodded. "Corporal Hoobler will be lead scout." His eyes scanned the crowd and landed on one of his platoon members. "Blithe, glad you could join us."

"Thank you, sir."

"First Platoon, fall in behind Fox Company," Welsh ordered, straight back to business. "You people from Second and Third Platoon, follow us. Shake a leg."

"Now, the thing to remember, boys:" Luz began again in his General Taylor impression, filing into line as they all began to head for Carentan, "flies spread disease, so keep yours closed."

And thus began more walking. All Posey seemed to have done the entire time she'd been in France was walk, crawl, or cry. There was a certain bliss to the monotony, though; whilst her feet ached and her muscles wept and her head pounded, all she had to focus on was putting one foot in front of the other. It reminded her a bit of being back at Toccoa, when they'd had to march twelve miles every Friday night, or even a bit of running up Currahee at the beginning, when there hadn't been much running involved at all. She smiled to herself at the thought and reached up briefly to check that Teddy was still with her, which he was, before clutching at her gun again. 

The noise discipline meant that there was little in the way of conversation - the only time anyone talked was when Fox Company walked too far ahead for First Platoon to keep up with, so everyone had to come to a halt. Eventually, this had happened so many times that the need to communicate what had happened also fell redundant. For her part, Posey had no interest in conversation; she was hot, tired, and achy. And hungry, now that she thought about it. She could think of little she wanted to do less than interrupt the steady rhythm of her boots on mud by faking a deep voice and American accent just to talk about something meaningless and inconsequential. 

Their journey into Carentan spanned multiple days. They walked and walked and walked, then dug in for the night, then did it all again the next day. The fear Posey had initially felt upon moving out had dulled right down, pushed out by boredom and exhaustion. The days were hot and the nights cold. More than anything she was sick of walking. 

When Posey ended up sat crouched on the floor of a hill leading into the town of Carentan, she knew the fear she felt wasn't misplaced this time. After days of walking she knew that this really was it; the same feeling she'd had in her stomach in the plane before the jump had settled in there again, feeling like lead as it rooted her to the spot. When the time came, she didn't know if she'd even be able to move. 

Up ahead, Winters and Welsh were looking down on the town, presumably discussing tactics. Posey couldn't see them but she knew they were there for how Buck Compton, Second Platoon's new platoon sergeant now that Winters was the company CO, kept his eyes trained on them just ahead of where she was. Directly in front of her was Guarnere, newly promoted to sergeant of Second Platoon in the wake of D-Day, who she had decided, all dislike aside, to stick to like glue. She'd heard the stories of the assault on Brécourt Manor on D-Day and everything that had happened for a big group of Easy men to get there, and from what she'd heard, Guarnere knew how to work in the field. 

And, though she wouldn't admit it, she knew he may be the only person willing to yank her up by the neck of her ODs and force her into action in the event she froze. Mutual animosity aside, she knew she could trust him in combat and could only hope to prove that he could do the same with her. At the present, however, she had no idea how she would react, and that thought might even have scared her more than the thought of combat itself. 

Somewhere down in the town a metal gate was squeaking on its hinges, and the wind whistled as it raced through open windows and fluttered curtains. The quiet was unsettling. The silence before a bomb. Next would come the chaos, and the anticipation of it had Posey's heart beating in her throat. She swallowed thickly but it didn't seem to want to budge. 

The sound of boots on gravel made Posey look up, and just as Winters was making his way back down the incline towards them, Welsh was gesturing the opposite way. "Lets go, First, lets go!" Welsh ordered in a pitched whisper, and First Platoon began to rise to follow him.

Posey's eyes shot to Winters, sticking to him and awaiting Second Platoon's orders. All he said was, "Go! Go!" as he made his way through them, before adding another, "Go!" when no one seemed to react.

Posey followed Guarnere's lead and got to her feet, resisting the urge to wipe the sweat off of her brow. She'd just have to deal with it now because there was no way she'd be taking her hands off of her gun. Just as she began to follow him in moving forwards, however, bullets started flying. 

Above the whistle and whine of the bullets and the _ping!_ of them making contact with the ground, Posey heard someone shout, "Down! Down! Down! Down!" and jumped into the ditch at the side of the road. Her heart thumped in her ears, racing faster than she could breathe to catch up with it. Her eyes were trained on the men from First who had already fallen up ahead, either dead or wounded, though the lack of movement and wailing pointed to the former. She felt her blood run cold; those people had died. They were dead. People from First that she knew and had trained with were already dead from doing this and Winters was shouting at her to follow right in their footsteps. 

The sweat on her forehead made her helmet tip forwards, so against her will she tipped it back and wiped her brow. That same hand immediately clutched at her rifle again, checking the safety was clicked off and making sure her windage and elevation were still where she'd predicted. Training seemed a million years ago now. 

"Go! Go! Get 'em going, Buck!" Winters barked, running further towards the town as though to prove a point. 

Posey's eyes swept from the dead bodies to Compton and then to Guarnere, waiting to follow whatever he did next. She resisted the urge to grab a handful of his sleeve and hold on for dear life if only to ensure he didn't leave without her; he didn't need to know she had decided to put her life in his hands. 

"Guarnere, lets go!" Compton shouted over the noise, and gestured him ahead. 

As soon as Guarnere was up and running, Posey pushed all thoughts of bullets and carnage aside and focused her energy on following him. She kept her rifle close to her, her fingers gripping it so tight she was surprised they didn't crack the metal in two. 

Guarnere ran straight through the centre of the pathway into town and took a sharp left, barrelling down the street and then flinging himself into the side of a building for cover. Posey slammed into the wall right beside him, hearing how quick and heavy her breath was coming before realising she wasn't the only one. Beside her was Perconte, his eyes wild as he scanned the way they'd just come, for dead bodies perhaps, and next to him Lipton was leading another three men. 

Lipton slipped past all of them and discussed something quickly with Guarnere before he set off running, Guarnere right behind him and Posey right behind as well. She could hear the heavy slapping of boots on concrete behind her and knew their entire group was moving as one, a huge target for the machine gunners and snipers seemingly set up in every building. She kept her eyes forwards and focused on Guarnere. 

They weaved through sideroads and around the back of a café before pressing themselves against another wall. Lipton peeked around the edge of the building and Posey took the time to adjust her hold on her rifle. She wasn't just there to run around, after all, and she hadn't earned an expert marksman badge for nothing. 

Lipton fired off a few shots before one of the men at the back of their group skidded to a halt beside him. Posey couldn't make out who it was over the sound of the noise and with his back to her. She strained her ears to listen to what he was saying. 

"There's one in the right upper wi-" His words were cut off abruptly when he was shot in the shoulder. 

Posey's eyes shot straight ahead, a loud gasp leaving her lips. 

"Medic!" one of the other men yelled. 

Posey's head spun as she grabbed a handful of the wounded man's ODs and helped to yank him back to cover. To Guarnere, she shouted, "Right upper window? Is that what he said?!"

Guarnere didn't seem to understand what she meant but Lipton slammed his back into the wall again and nodded. "Have at it, Wells!"

Not giving herself time to think on what she was about to do, Posey sprang to her feet and took Lipton's place at the edge of the building. She brought her rifle up to where she needed it and drew in a quick breath. She stepped out from behind the building and fired off four shots before slipping back into cover. When she peeked at the right upper window she grinned. 

"Got him!" she called, and let Lipton take his place again. 

Only once she was back slumped against the wall did she allow herself a deep breath. She'd just killed someone. A human being. And she'd been happy about it. 

The thoughts didn't have time to settle before Lipton was shouting out orders again. 

"Guarnere, clear that sector on the right!"

And thus she was off, her legs beating fast underneath her and her heart beating even faster, knowing that, of all the bullets currently being shot at her, any of them could allow her next breath to be her last.


	38. Bullet

Posey kept tight on Guarnere's heels as they dashed across the fray. She kept her head down, holding on tight to her rifle and watching Guarnere's boots slam into the ground in front of her. When they reached cover, he shouted out orders and gave the corresponding hand gestures to make men peel off from the group.

Whatever Guarnere had ordered Posey to do she didn't catch, her eyes busy looking for snipers and the cacophony of battle too loud for her to hear him at all. Instead, when he darted off towards a shop on the opposite side of the road, presumably to clear it, she followed, and watched his back as he kicked the door in.

Posey followed him quickly into the shop, whirling around and pointing her gun every which way as she scanned for Germans. Guarnere whipped around to face her, and whoever he'd been expecting to find, it evidently hadn't been her.

"Wells?!" he exclaimed.

"Hi," she replied sheepishly before aiming out of the door again, just in case.

He didn't question her further and turned back to the situation at hand.

They cleared the downstairs in less than a minute, finding the place unoccupied, before heading out the back door and up a metal staircase to access the apartment above. Guarnere kicked the door in again and they worked efficiently as a unit, Posey watching the rear and Guarnere pushing forwards. In no time at all they were slipping back down the stairs and making their way to the next building along.

Posey thought it was all going rather well until the building beside them exploded. The wall next to them crumbled and plaster rained down on them. Posey stumbled the other way and crashed into the wall. She scrambled to her feet when Guarnere barked, "Wells!"

He led the way back out onto the street and the pair of them stuck close to the wall, heading back the way they'd come. Posey aimed at the upstairs windows of the buildings opposite, hoping a glint of metal in the sunlight might betray a sniper, before a different kind of glint caught her eye. Her head shot in its direction and she yanked Guarnere back by the back of his ODs right as a telephone pole collapsed directly in their path. When he glanced back at her, just as shocked as she was, it was all she could do to shake her head. She had no idea how she'd managed that either.

They hopped over the fallen telephone pole and skidded down a sideroad, pressing their backs to the wall of the building immediately.

"They got us zeroed!" Lipton bellowed from somewhere behind them, his voice guttural and raw. "Spread it out! Spread it out!"

A building to their left exploded. Posey ducked instinctively and then found her feet again, aiming for the windows whilst she awaited Guarnere's next order.

"Get outta there!" Lipton shouted again. "Get the hell outta the street! Move!"

"Wells -" Guarnere began, just as metal caught the light just to the right of where she'd been aiming.

"Got ya," she murmured, sliding along the wall to get closer. "I need a fucking sniper rifle."

"Wells!"

She fired three shots and glanced behind her. Guarnere gestured to their left. "Go!"

She nodded and looked back at the sniper she'd been aiming at, only to watch as he fired a bullet.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed. To Guarnere, she said, "Go! I'll cover! There's a sniper!"

"Fuckin' get him then!"

Posey aimed and fired again, then adjusted her aim and tried once more. When there was no more movement she nodded to Guarnere. "Lets go!"

Guarnere pushed ahead of her and sprinted across the street. When they found cover she fired three shots at a German who'd run past and grinned when he dropped. She was a good shot, after all; she just needed a sniper rifle.

"Wells, on me!" Guarnere shouted and was off once more. Posey kept to his heels but her head was up this time, her confidence growing with every target she hit.

Not looking where she was going, she skidded and was thrown backwards by the arm Guarnere had thrown out to halt her. He shoved her behind the nearest building and joined her as the ground they'd been about to run across exploded. Posey paid it little mind, focusing only on following wherever her platoon sergeant led and firing as many bullets at as many targets as she could.

Guarnere shouted out orders to the men they passed as they went, rearranging formations and getting his soldiers out of harm's way as much as possible. The streets were beginning to be lined with bodies. Hopping over them was a necessary evil.

Pressed up against the side of a smoking building, its remnants a pile of rubble and one stubborn wall, Posey peeked around the side and kept watch for the snipers which seemed to be their main foe.

"See any?" Guarnere asked, just as she caught sight of a machine gunner set up in a house.

She took aim around the corner, struggling with the angle, and fired a shot. The impact of the bullet pitched her over. Guarnere dragged her back by her ankle.

Posey shook him off and made to scramble to her feet before he shoved her back down. The rubble she'd landed on cut harshly into her back, burning.

"Let me try again!" she shouted, already planting her elbows and beginning to push up.

"Medic!" Guarnere bellowed.

"I don't need a fucking -!" Guarnere pressed a hand to her abdomen, cutting her off. "Get off me!" she said, struggling against his grip.

"Stop fuckin' movin'!" he snapped, then cried, "Medic!" once more.

Posey tore at the hand pressing her to the ground and found it slick. When she held her own hand up she found blood.

"Oh dear," she said. That was when it started to hurt.

She went limp on the ground, all of her struggles to get back up and try again dying in the wake of the burning pain. Fire crawled its way outwards from the hole in her stomach, the centre of the wound burning ice cold. "Like putting your bare feet in ice," she mumbled aloud, just as the thought hit her.

Now that she wasn't struggling, Guarnere had time to put his rifle aside. Hands freed, he grabbed at the fabric of her ODs.

"No!" Mustering whatever strength she had left inside of her, Posey reached for his hands and ripped them away. "No, you can't!"

"You've been fuckin' shot!" Guarnere protested, wrenching his hands free of her grip.

Posey shook her head weakly and covered the wound herself. "I have to - I have to fix it myself," she pleaded. "Or - or get Roe - I can't -"

"Medic!" Guarnere shouted once more.

Knowing she was fighting a losing battle, Posey took the time he was distracted to tear just enough of her ODs to get to the wound. When Guarnere turned back to her she threw crossed arms over her chest. "Sulfa, bandage, and then lets go!" she demanded above the noise.

Guarnere did as he was told, tearing a packet of sulfa and sprinkling it over the exposed wound.

His movements halted. "Wait," he began, slapping at his pockets. "Morphine comes first."

"Bandage!" Posey cried. "Morphine later!"

As soon as she was bandaged up as well as she could be, Guarnere stumbled to his feet and picked her up in a bridal carry. If they weren't in a warzone and she hadn't just been shot, Posey would've laughed.

He ran with her across the street and then navigated the backstreets. Posey tried to ignore the pain. She needed to be conscious and lucid when they got to the aid station because she couldn't go to a hospital. She'd been to a military hospital; there would be no way of hiding her identity there.

Yet another explosion had Guarnere stumbling forwards and Posey ducking her head into his chest, though his hold on her never faltered. When they made it to the makeshift aid station, the battle seemed to be dying down.

Posey felt Guarnere's chest expand underneath her head, a hint he was about to shout for a medic, and tugged hard on his ODs. "It's not urgent," she insisted, still tugging at him. "Don't call for a medic."

"You've been -"

"Roe!" Posey cried, catching sight of the one person she could trust with this.

Roe's head shot up at his name and his face dropped. He hurried over immediately.

"Set her down, Bill," he directed, and helped Guarnere lower her to the ground. Posey didn't immediately recognise his mistake but when she did she sucked in a breath so harsh it left her coughing afterwards.

"Calm down, Wells. Calm down," Roe attempted to soothe before ripping off the bandage Guarnere had haphazardly tied. "Exit wound?" Guarnere shook his head. A sound like a growl emerged from Roe's mouth. "Gotta get the bullet out. He had morphine?"

At least he hadn't tripped up again. Only time would tell whether Guarnere had caught the initial blunder.

"No, nothin'."

Roe worked quickly and efficiently. Against Posey's weak protests he injected her with morphine before fishing the bullet out. Once the sulfa and bandage were applied he sat back on his heels. "Gonna need the hospital, Wells." His eyes held an apology Posey couldn't accept just now.

"No. Roe, I can't go to a hospital."

"You gotta -"

"I've been to a military hospital! They'll find out!"

"It could get infected on the line -"

"And they might shoot me if they find out!" Posey exclaimed, finally finding the energy to raise her voice to the volume she needed it at. When Roe didn't reply immediately she sighed and coughed weakly in a bid to dull the pain the morphine couldn't combat. In a low voice, she added, "If I go and they find out, I'm as good as dead. It's safer for me on the line."

Roe watched her closely for a few moments, his eyes hard and his face expressionless, until he sighed. He dropped his head and gave a weak nod before shooting a glance at Guarnere. When his eyes met Posey's once more he was apologetic again. "I gotta go. There's a lotta wounded."

Posey nodded and tried to muster a smile for him. She could tell he was sorry to leave her alone with Guarnere, alone to battle against whatever questions he now had.

"It's okay," she assured Roe, and nodded encouragingly. "And thank you."

Roe nodded. "S'alright." He offered a quick smile and inclined his head towards Guarnere before turning to tend to more wounded. Posey watched his retreating figure until the pressure of Guarnere's eyes on her was too much not to shrivel under, so she looked up to stare back.

Their staring contest lasted mere seconds before Guarnere broke the silence. "Why can't you go to the hospital?" When she didn't respond, he added, "What can't they find out?"

Posey gnawed on her bottom lip as she considered the questions carefully, mentally skimming through her options on how to deal with the situation and finding that she didn't have many. When she didn't make to offer any answers, Guarnere prompted, "Wells," and she huffed.

"Fine!" she exclaimed, though she still had no idea what was about to come out of her mouth. "I can't go to hospital because I'm British."

"Bullshit, Wells, that don't make any sense. You got a record already, and how would they find out?"

So little time to think, and how difficult it was to try to with his piercing gaze on her.

_Think, think, think,_ she mentally bid herself. _Should've thought about this before jumping into a warzone._

"I, uh -" she began, stumbling over her words as her thoughts spun. She grasped onto that, seeing her way out in her own internal distress. She began to sway where she was sitting and pressed a hand to her forehead. "I don't feel so good."

Guarnere rolled his eyes. "Quit fuckin' around and answer me, Wells. Why the fuck can't you go to the hospital?" He leaned forwards from where he'd been kneeling beside her, his elbows propped up on his knees whilst his eyes bore holes into her. "What are you hidin'?"

Posey narrowed her eyes and shot him an icy smile. Through gritted teeth, she replied, "Wouldn't you like to know?"


	39. Talk

"Guarnere!" shouted Compton. Guarnere's head shot up and Posey let out an inaudible sigh of relief; Compton's timing had never been so spot on. "Get over here."

"Alright, Buck. I'm comin'," Guarnere replied. He shot a glance back down at Posey and huffed. "I'll fuckin' find out what you're hidin', Wells. Don't think I won't."

"Okay," she replied, and smiled smugly as she watched him leave. As soon as he was over with Compton she let herself sag back to the floor and breathe. She had just experienced combat for the first time, and been shot, and almost had her secret busted by Guarnere, of all people. What she needed to do was rest and let it all sink in, especially as she could already hear some of the other enlisted talking about a potential German counterattack. Whilst yesterday had been all monotony, today was turning out to be anything but.

After a while of lying on the ground and contemplating the events of the day, Posey forced herself to sit back up again. She stared down at her hands, covered in her own blood and sticky with it, too, before planting them to push herself to her feet. She groaned through gritted teeth through all of her many attempts to do so before finally making it standing. Following a hobbling man towards where she assumed the aid station had now been moved - somewhere more convenient now that the Germans had retreated - she made her way back into Carentan.

When she made it to the aid station, she found Roe tending to Winters' leg. Internally, she grimaced; if they had to go without Winters during this supposed counterattack they'd be doomed. Still, she hid those sentiments and offered a small smile and an inclined head. "Sir."

"Wells," Winters greeted back. "You get hit?"

"Uh -"

"Just shrapnel, like you," Roe cut in, addressing Winters. Eugene Roe really was an angel.

Posey nodded. "I'm good to stay on the line, sir. Roe's patched me up already." She turned her attention to the man in question. "I was just looking for some water to get the blood off my hands - what are the chances this place has running water?"

Even though she'd been speaking to Roe, Winters answered her through a low chuckle. "Slim to none, I'd say. Might be worth a try."

Posey nodded. "Right. I will. Thank you, sir."

Winters only nodded, his attention now back on where Roe was cleaning his wound. Posey took that as her cue to leave and headed towards where she thought she might find a tap. On her way she passed Blithe, a man from First she'd spoken to on occasion. He was sat by the door, his knees pulled up to his chest and his eyes vacant as they stared straight ahead of him.

Posey's step faltered. She watched him warily for a few moments before asking tentatively, "You okay, Blithe?" She kept her distance but tried to sound as reassuring as possible.

Blithe nodded but didn't move his eyes. "Yeah," he replied dazedly, almost dreamily - though perhaps that was just his soft southern drawl. "Yeah, I'm alright," he added after a considerable pause. Posey waited for him to elaborate but he never did.

After a few beats she spoke again. "Well, okay." She fiddled with her hands and then clasped them behind her back. "I'll see you later." Blithe didn't make to reply, or make any indication that he'd heard her at all, so she turned and continued her search for water.

As she scoured the building, she wondered whether Blithe might be suffering from shell shock. He didn't seem to have any physical injuries - certainly she hadn't seen any blood on him, and Roe had obviously known he was there, so he couldn't have been desperately in trouble regardless. But there was definitely something off about him; in training he'd always been a bit dreamy but never much more so than Posey was herself. Now, he looked to be in a different place entirely. He was away with the fairies, as her father had used to say. If that really was shell shock, she understood why her brother had been so harsh with his warnings about the horrors of war. She couldn't imagine anyone being able to function in combat in such a state.

The building the aid station had been set up in didn't appear to have any taps, so she moved onto the next, then the next, then the next, until she found one. The water pressure was terrible - and, indeed, so was the water, which in itself smelt quite foul - but it got the majority of the blood off of her hands. The rest she attempted to wipe off on her ODs, which was a losing battle because they, too, were caked in blood.

She came wandering out of the shop keenly aware of the pain in her side. Angry flames tore at her skin, sharp daggers that wrenched her open. Her vision swam and her head spun. The world tilted around her. She thought she must have been swaying and braced herself on the wall of the shop. The skin on her palm dragged down the brick as she lowered herself slowly to the ground, only vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps and someone saying her last name.

She didn't know when she'd closed her eyes but she opened them when she felt a hand on her shoulder. The dizziness had subsided somewhat but the pain lingered. The hand squeezed her shoulder and she looked up to find Guarnere.

"You gotta tell me why you ain't gonna go to a fuckin' hospital, Wells. As your platoon sergeant and your squad leader, I gotta know."

Posey rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Don't pull rank on me."

Guarnere scoffed. "Wells."

"I think I need more morphine."

He shook his head immediately. "Ain't been long enough yet. I'll tell ya when you can have more. It hurt a lot?" Posey nodded. "Then tell me why you can't go to a hospital."

Posey dropped her head into her hands, her elbows propped up on her knees. She fiddled with the rim of her helmet before removing it and rubbing at her temples. What to do, what to do, what to do.

When she lifted her head again, Guarnere had his eyebrows furrowed deeply and his jaw clenched. Posey chewed on her bottom lip before saying softly, "If I tell you you can't tell _anyone_. Okay? Not a single soul. No one can know."

Guarnere nodded. "Alright."

"No, I mean it," she implored. "If the wrong person finds out I could be shot. It's serious."

"Wells..."

"I know it sounds like I'm being dramatic but I'm not. You have to promise not to tell."

"Fine, I promise."

Posey nodded and took a deep breath. She drew her eyes away from his, escaping the intensity of his gaze, and watched her hands where they fiddled in her lap. Subconsciously, she reached down to claw at the ground but her fingertips only scratched at concrete, so she lifted a hand to check for Teddy and only once she felt him pressed close to her chest did she admit, "I'm a woman."

"What?"

"I'm a woman," she repeated, still not daring to look at him. "A girl. A female. I don't know, a broad, a dame, a lady. Or at least I used to be a lady. Are you understanding?" When he didn't reply she mustered all of the courage she could find within herself and looked at him. When she did, she found him watching her closely, as though attempting to gauge for himself whether she was telling the truth, but there was something unsettled on his face. He looked almost... aghast. "Bill?" she prompted.

"This whole time?" was the first thing he said. He shook his head and then removed his helmet to run a hand through his hair. "Fuck. You're shittin' me. You're really a broad?"

"Yes." She felt defensive about this fact all of a sudden. None of the others had been so slow to believe her. "You've been saying I look like a girl, laugh like a girl, talk like a girl, whatever, for two years, and now I'm telling you that that's because I _am_ a girl and you don't believe me?"

Guarnere's face fell even further. "Ah, fuck. All this time... all the shi- _stuff_ I've said to you. I been -" He cut himself off as horror filled his eyes. "My ma is gonna kill me."

"Your 'ma' isn't going to find out, remember?" Posey reminded, trying desperately to follow what he was saying and ensure his discretion. "No one can know. Not a single soul."

Guarnere went on as though uninterrupted. "All this time I been arguin' with a _broad_?"

Posey scoffed. "A broad who can dish it out just as well as she can receive it, thank you very much. Don't go all soft on me now just because I'm a woman. I've been a woman this whole time and you didn't care."

"'Cause I didn't know!" He ran another hand through his hair and shook his head. "Just so you know, that ain't how I'd usually treat a lady. My ma raised me better than that."

This was certainly unexpected.

"Right..." Posey's eyebrows were furrowed and her lips turned down at the sides, her perplexment written plainly on her face. When she was sure he wasn't going to continue his 'I respect women' speech, she shook her own head and went on, "Well, anyway. Just don't tell anyone, okay? No one. Not Toye, or your family back home in any letters, or anyone. No one. Understand? 'Cause I know we don't really get along but I'd hope you don't want me dead. I mean, I don't want you dead and you're a proper pain in the arse."

Guarnere barked a laugh. Finally, he seemed to be comprehending. "You're one fuckin' crazy broad, you know that?"

Posey chuckled under her breath. "I've been told a few times."

"And you're actually British?"

She sighed. She supposed it was time to unveil her sob story once more. It never did seem to get easier. "Yes," she began, keeping her voice as even as possible. Guarnere had already seen her cry once and the memory of it still kept her awake at night. So embarrassing. "I was evacuated to America during the Blitz but my brother was in the RAF and my mum was still back in London so I joined the army to get home quicker. Then obviously I already told you that my mum died - bombed along with my home - and my brother's wounded so he can't be a pilot anymore, so I didn't really have any choice but to stay with the company."

Guarnere looked a little bit melancholy; sad and pensive, none of his earlier good humour was present anymore. Posey hardly knew why, for he'd already known the saddest parts of her story - indeed, he was the first to find out.

He looked like he was going to say something, a word of explanation perhaps, before he clamped his mouth closed once more and shook his head. He wiped his expression clean and was once more the stone-faced, generally unimpressed sergeant who believed wholeheartedly in his own importance. As the days went by, however, Posey was starting to think that this wasn't his default setting. The image he tried to portray had cracks in it, cracks she'd seen twice now - first when he'd found her crying, and second right now, when he was finding out her biggest secret. She smiled to herself to think that deep down he was a softie, really, who cared about things like the names of teddy bears and what his mother thought of his behaviour. Perhaps he wasn't all bad.

"I won't tell," he spoke into the pause that had followed her explanation. He was staring straight ahead, very serious now. "Does anyone else know?"

"Johnny, Roe, and Nixon."

"Nixon?!" Guarnere exclaimed before Posey shushed him. In a lower voice, he accused, "You told _Nixon_?!"

"I didn't _tell_ him," Posey defended. "He worked it out! He's an intelligence officer, he knows things. Fucking cornered me in Aldbourne and asked me why I was still here. All but soiled myself when he did."

Guarnere barked a laugh and, after a moment, Posey laughed too. Then she shook her head. "I didn't tell any of them willingly. Johnny found me sneaking to the bathrooms in bootcamp and Roe worked it out as well. They've kept mum about it, though, and if you're going to join our secret society then you have to as well."

"You're fuckin' nuts," Guarnere said, cackling to himself in the way only he was able. "Jesus Christ. A goddamn broad -"

"Who saved your life about an hour ago!"

Guarnere brushed her aside. "Yeah, yeah." He shook his head. "Can't believe Johnny knows and he didn't tell me."

Posey grinned and shrugged at the look he gave her. With a wink, she told him, "Careless talk costs lives."


	40. Foxhole

Posey sat on the edge of Carentan, watching the sunset begin to paint the sky orange. Orange wasn't a colour she was fond of - it reminded her of fire, which reminded her of bombs, which reminded her of the Blitz - but this particular hue softened everything. As the dying light settled over the soldiers still reeling from battle, for many of them their very first, the orange served as a reminder that they were the lucky ones who had made it to sunset. There were many men lying back in the town who would have attested to that if they could, Posey was sure.

"Hey. Wells," Johnny called out, behind her all of a sudden. Posey glanced back and offered him a small smile, so he came to sit beside her. "You alright?"

Posey hummed her affirmative. "Yeah," she said, watching the sky again. "Just thinking, I suppose."

"Heard you got hurt," Johnny commented.

She could feel him watching her but didn't turn to look. "Not badly," she replied with a shrug. "Roe sorted me out. I'm staying on the line."

She was expecting an argument she didn't get. In her surprise, Posey turned to look at Johnny and found him watching the sky, too. After a beat, he said, "Let me know if you're struggling, alright? I know you can't go to a hospital but that don't mean you can get yourself killed 'cause you ain't lookin' after yourself."

Posey suppressed a smile and nodded. "Yeah, I will." She paused a while, taking in the sounds of early evening. The chatter of the men gathered nearby floated over to them on the breeze, and every now and again a burst of laughter would fill the air. Posey missed the sound of birds chirping; probably the birds had all been scared away by the battle, but she longed for their singing now. She wasn't quite sure why.

To cover the quiet that didn't feel complete, she asked, "Did you get hurt at all?"

Johnny laughed to himself. He drew out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one silently - which she declined, naturally - before taking one for himself and lighting it. "I'm fine," he replied once the cigarette was in his mouth and he'd taken a puff. "Why do you always refuse the smokes?"

Posey rolled her eyes and turned away from him but a smile tugged at her lips. It wasn't necessarily a happy smile, or at least she wasn't necessarily happy in the present; more, it was a smile of nostalgia, of a happiness she'd felt in the past. Quietly, she explained, "My mum always told me that the only time a lady is allowed to smoke is when she's widowed. And even then, only when she's sitting down. I'm not quite sure why the latter rule exists but I was raised a proper lady, and if my mother wishes me not to smoke unless I'm widowed, then I won't smoke unless I should ever find myself widowed. Also I don't think sitting on the floor counts."

"A proper lady, huh?" Johnny teased, chuckling under his breath. "A proper lady who disguised herself as a boy to join the paratroopers."

In spite of herself, Posey laughed. "Out of necessity. I didn't want to end up in a warzone, remember?" She shook her head. "Guarnere knows now, by the way. About me."

"You told him?"

"I didn't have much of a choice." She fiddled mindlessly at the patch on the arm of her ODs. "He was there when I told Roe I couldn't go to a hospital and he wanted to know why." She paused, awaiting a response that didn't come. Eventually, she added, "I think he'll keep the secret. You trust him, don't you?"

Johnny breathed out a laugh. "Yeah, I trust him. He's just -" His words faltered a moment before he pushed on. "He's a bit of a live wire right now. Just before we jumped he found out that his brother -"

Footsteps behind them cut the interaction short and Posey turned to find Guarnere approaching. She didn't think she'd ever interacted with him more than she had in the previous twelve hours and hoped this would be the last of it; he may have promised he'd keep her secret but that didn't change all that much about their mutual animosity. Not _really_ , anyway. But she had to admit that she was curious about his brother.

"We're headin' east," Guarnere said once he was close enough to be heard. Posey breathed a sigh of relief when she realised he was addressing Johnny, NCO to NCO. "Goin' for higher ground to avoid a counterattack."

Johnny nodded. "Right."

Guarnere nodded back before turning to Posey. "Listen, you gonna be alright walkin' with that wound?"

Posey made a show of rolling her eyes and shot him a scowl. "Do. Not. Coddle. Me." Johnny laughed but Guarnere narrowed his eyes. "I'm not a child," she went on. "And I faired just fine in Carentan, woman and all. Just because you know now doesn't change anything about the fact that I've been capable all along."

Guarnere scoffed. "Fuckin' Christ, give me time to breathe. I'm just makin' sure you ain't gonna collapse on the trip over."

"I'm not."

"Good."

"Wonderful." She shot him a saccharine sweet smile. "Bye, now."

Guarnere huffed and walked away, likely in search of the other NCOs in Second Platoon to inform them of their new orders. Posey watched him leave for a few moments before turning back around and slumping back where she sat, leaning on her hands. To Johnny, she said, "I hate that he knows."

She watched Johnny shrug in her periphery. "They're all gonna find out eventually."

"No they aren't," Posey protested. "They can't. I'll be in so much trouble. Dear God, I will actually be in _so_ much trouble." She'd known this before but only after seeing combat for herself could she truly understand the gravitas of her actions. She was trespassing in a warzone. She had gotten herself into occupied territory under false pretences, was being paid by the army to do a job she wasn't allowed to do, and, on top of all of this, she wasn't even American. The others could definitely not find out.

"I don't see how you'll be able to hide it forever."

"Imagine if Luz finds out!" Posey exclaimed, unable to keep the thought inside once it had hit her. "No one has a bigger mouth than that man!" She shook her head adamantly. "The war has to end before they all find out, or at least before Luz finds out. Either that or I die first."

"You ain't gonna die, Wells. I told ya that."

"I'm just saying," Posey said, brushing him aside.

The entirety of Second Battalion moved out of Carentan a small while later and, much like Guarnere had predicted, walking was a bigger problem than Posey had hoped it would be. The terrain was uneven, making rolled ankles and tripping a frequent occurrence, and even with evening falling upon them the humidity was still stifling. Posey could feel her bandages getting damp with sweat and her second round of morphine wearing off. She didn't know whether she'd be allowed a third.

Then it started to rain.

"Fuck's sake," she grumbled, not realising she'd said it aloud until Bull shot her a curious glance.

"You alright?"

She nodded through a tight smile. "Wet bandages," she explained, and left it at that. After all, the bandages were visible through the huge tear in her ODs. She shifted her rifle to her shoulder to free up her hands and pulled the mangled fabric of her ODs together in the hopes of protecting her wound a little bit more.

"Need me to call the doc?" Bull asked.

Posey shook her head. "It's not gonna stop raining anytime soon. Even if he changed the bandage now it'd still get wet."

"Get it changed as soon as it stops," he told her, offering a nod and a kind smile.

Posey nodded and smiled back before ducking her head. Maybe the rim of her helmet would help to keep her dry. It was worth a try.

She trudged on with her head bowed lower and lower over her chest, desperately trying to keep the rainwater off of her wound, before gunfire tore her attention away.

"Incoming!"

Posey fumbled with her rifle. Once she had it in her hands she struggled with finding a grip. Her hands were soaked, her rifle even more so.

"Contact right!"

She lifted her gun to aim and was yanked back by the neck of her ODs.

"Cover!" Bull shouted.

"Get in the hedgerow!" ordered Winters.

Bull let go of her and she scrambled after him, ducking her head again but keeping her rifle close. Bull jumped into the trenchlike hedgerow first and held out a hand to help her down. She grabbed it tightly and jumped, stumbling once her feet had hit the mud.

"Ow!" she exclaimed. She grasped at her side with wet hands before realising the mistake.

"Down, Wells!" Bull yelled. "Get down!"

She ducked immediately and fell to her knees, hugging her rifle to her chest. Her eyes were squeezed tight shut and her teeth gritted, listening to the sounds of chaos around her. Her wound burned and screamed at her, heat licking its way outwards from her side. She kept her head ducked and waited until silence fell once more.

"You alright?" Bull asked tentatively the moment the gunfire had ceased. He rested a hand on her shoulder and only then did Posey look up.

With the trees above them, far less rain was getting to her now. She nodded and chanced a glance down at her side, grimacing once she saw the sodden bandage with bright red bleeding through its white.

"Medic!" Bull shouted without needing to be asked.

Posey smiled her thanks to him and slumped back against the wall of grass and dirt behind her. She let her head tip back to feel the sparse rain on her skin, letting it cool her. Roe didn't take long in getting to her.

"How's that wound doin', Wells?" he asked upon arrival. Posey glanced down to find him crouched before her, already rifling through his med bag.

Posey smiled weakly. "Hurts," she replied. "But not too bad. Need a new bandage, though."

Roe smiled, half a grimace and half a grin. "I see that," he said, right as he pulled a bandage out.

Posey didn't watch as he tended to her. Instead, she rested her head back again and gazed up into the sky, watching as night continued to push in. The rain was easing now, a few drops falling on her only every once in a while. Roe tapped her knee to let her know he was finished.

"Keep that wound dry," he told her once she'd looked at him. His tone was serious. Posey nodded. "I'm serious, Wells. If it don't stay dry it'll get infected and that'll hurt twice as bad as it did when it first happened."

"I'll keep it dry, Roe. Promise," Posey assured him, closing her ODs back over the bandages again to prove her point. "Or I'll try my best, at least."

Roe nodded. "Good." He inclined his head cordially to Bull and then left, likely to see to someone else. Posey uncurled her legs from under her and sat back against the hedgerow. It was nice to rest.

The opportunity to rest, however, was short-lived. Within a matter of minutes the officers were making their way down the line telling everyone to begin digging foxholes. They'd be staying there for the night.

Posey huffed an almighty sigh to steel herself before pushing herself into a crouch. She patted herself down for her entrenching tool - with how dark it was now there would be no point in looking for it - and yanked it out with little patience.

"Sick and tired of this shi-" she began to rant, and was cut off by a hand pushing hers back down by her side.

"You ain't diggin' shit, Wells," Guarnere said. When she opened her mouth to protest he shot her an icy glare. "I ain't fuckin' coddlin' you. Doc told me he already had to rebandage you once and he ain't gonna fuckin' do it again. Alright?"

"It'll take you forever to dig on your own," she grumbled, sitting back down and crossing her arms petulantly. "And then you'll have to go and dig your own, too."

Guarnere scoffed. "This is my own." He punctuated his sentence by digging his entrenching tool roughly into the ground. "We're foxhole buddies. Congratulations."

Posey let her head fall back against the dirt. To the dark of the sky, she said, "God, please give me the strength not to kill this man, amen." When she heard Guarnere laugh, albeit reluctantly, she smirked. "What can I do to help?" she wondered, still gazing up into the darkness.

She heard Guarnere huff before he gouged out another mound of dirt. "You can sit still and shut up."

"Lucky me."

"Do you _ever_ stop talkin'?"

Posey grinned but didn't reply. Instead, she gazed up into the night sky and listened to the sounds of digging all around her, trying to imagine what Mrs. Daniels was doing at that precise moment. She had no idea what time it was back in Boston but she thought it was probably during the day. She imagined the old woman, who had treated her so kindly, humming as she did the laundry, her voice carrying over to every corner of her small house. Posey smiled. The smile fell when guilt came crashing back over her with the realisation that she still hadn't written to her. Not since leaving the States.

Mrs. Daniels would understand, Posey decided with finality. Eventually. It would be best not to worry her, in any case, and wouldn't it be better for her to believe Posey was at home and safe with her family and not sat in a hole in France with a gunshot wound?

Yes, she thought, there was no need to worry the old woman who had always been so kind to her. Who had taken her in as her own and hadn't even batted an eye when she'd told her she was going off to join the army. Posey missed that woman sorely. Maybe one day, if she was really, really lucky, she'd get to see that woman again and thank her for everything. But that day was in the distant future, if in the future at all, and Posey couldn't let herself start to think on the future just now when each day was a gift and not a given.

When Guarnere finished digging their foxhole - not even that long after everyone else, he declared smugly, the arrogant bastard - Posey hopped down into it with the reluctant help of his arm. The pair of them sat side-by-side in their hole in the ground and Posey couldn't help but laugh; how ever had she come to find herself here?

Guarnere shot her a glance and quirked an eyebrow. "What are you gigglin' at?"

"I'm not _giggling_ ," Posey replied, giving him a look. "But if you must know, I was thinking about how bizarre it is that I'm here. Not where I thought I'd end up at all."

"Yeah, well me neither," he replied, his expression somewhere between a scowl and a smile. Posey couldn't see him all that well in the darkness, especially with his helmet pulled so low over his eyes, and she didn't care enough to try. He was probably scowling, she thought. He always seemed to be scowling.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet and, eventually, to the singing of a few men a little way along from them. When the singing stopped, likely because an officer had told them in no uncertain terms to pack it in, Guarnere hummed in thought. Posey turned to him with eyebrows furrowed, wondering what was about to come out of his mouth. No doubt it was a question she didn't much want to answer.

"What's your real name?" came the question after a few beats of silence. "'Cause you told us it was Joe."

Posey tutted and shook her head at him, something teasing in her smile. "How quickly you forget," she replied, the makings of a grin in her voice. "Careless talk costs lives."


	41. Left

To have made it through the night was a miracle. Sharing a foxhole with Guarnere was less than ideal and the pair of them spent the night bickering, but at least Posey was still on the line by the time sunrise rolled around. The same couldn't be said of Tab, who had been stabbed by Smith's bayonet when he was waking him to go on watch. They'd all been woken up by the noise of it when it had happened but they were assured Tab would live. The rest of the night, thankfully, was uneventful. Aside from Guarnere's snoring.

"My God do you snore like a freight train," Posey hissed in the morning, when the sunrise was too bright to allow her to sleep.

"I don't snore," Guarnere protested. "You fuckin' snore."

"You wouldn't know, because I didn't get a wink of sleep with your loud mouth going off beside me like a fucking air raid siren."

"Shut up, Wells. I dug the foxhole and I should get to sleep in it."

Posey mimicked him and laughed when he nudged her with his elbow. When she heard footsteps approaching she grabbed her rifle, expecting new orders now that she was in the company of a platoon sergeant.

"We're attacking at 0530, Bill," Compton said the moment he'd appeared crouched over the foxhole. "Make sure your platoon's ready."

"Will do, Buck," Guarnere replied, and with that, Compton was off again.

"I wonder how Tab's doing," Posey commented idly as she listened to his retreating footsteps.

"Ah, he'll be fine," Guarnere said, brushing her comment aside. "They'll send him back to England in no time. He'll be laid up in a hospital surrounded by nurses. Fuckin' wish Smith had poked me."

Posey laughed a little bit. "I wonder what it feels like to be stabbed."

Guarnere shrugged. "Probably feels like gettin' shot." He turned to her. "What's it feel like gettin' shot?"

Posey turned to face him with an innocent smile. "Wanna find out?"

"Fuck off, Wells," Guarnere replied, but there was none of his usual bite to his words. Posey smiled smugly to herself at what she counted as a victory.

She was left by herself a little while later when Guarnere had to leave to make sure the rest of the platoon were ready for the imminent battle. Posey sat in her foxhole wishing she had a watch so that she'd know how close they were to 0530, but the sound of increasing chatter revealed that they must be close. She wasn't sure whether she was ready to see combat again but at least she wouldn't have to run around and leap behind cover this time. All she had to do was stay put and shoot, which was what she was best at. She just had to remember her training.

"Up and at 'em, Wells, we're getting ready to go," Compton informed her as he passed by her hole. Posey glanced up and nodded, taking his proffered hand and getting out of the foxhole as carefully as possible. Once she was out, Compton moved onto the next hole and she faced the opposite hedgerow, wondering whether the Germans knew they were about to be attacked. She secured the strap of her rifle and calculated her windage and elevation, adjusting them accordingly before practising her aim; she was worried she'd be shaky now that she was wounded.

When Compton brushed back past her on his way down the line she offered him a smile, which he returned, before clicking off the safety on her gun. She shared a glance with Bull, on her left, and Toye, on her right, before focusing straight ahead, staring at the hedgerow she'd have to scale in order to shoot. She drew in a deep breath and waited for the order.

"Mortar!"

"Incoming!"

"Down, down, down, down, down!"

The Germans had beaten them to it.

"Fuck!"

Posey scrambled up onto the line and aimed. She forced herself not to think about anything but the targets she shot at and whether or not she hit them. The bullets fired from her gun as though someone else was pulling the trigger.

All around her was chaos. Men were running through the hedgerow, moving their firing positions as commanded, and getting hit left, right, and centre. Posey dropped her head after hitting each target, hoping to minimise her chances of being shot. Cries for a medic were increasing in both frequency and volume.

"Wells! Move your firing position to the left!" Lipton shouted at her as he ran down the hedgerow. Posey nodded, sliding backwards into the trench and crouching as she ran left. When she had gone far enough, she dragged herself back up onto the line, and aimed. Only then did she realise that their entire left flank had gone down.

"Jesus!" she shouted, hearing her voice as though from a different room, before aiming and shooting once more. She fired erratically until she saw two bodies run straight out into the fray. When she saw why, she gasped. "Panzers."

A seeming herd of German tanks were cresting a hill directly towards them, and two of their own were right in their path, getting ready to fire a bazooka. Posey knew it was useless to fire at tanks with an M1, so she forced herself to turn away from whatever disaster was about to take place. She prayed the two martyrs who'd decided to take on the Panzers weren't anyone she was close with.

Posey took to trying to defend their left flank once more, feeling increasingly like she was fighting a losing battle as the men beside her began to drop like flies as well.

"Dog and Fox pulled back! We're fuckin' on our own!" someone cried.

"Who's on our right flank then?" Posey shouted back to them. She ducked and shot a glance sideways to find Webster from Third.

"First Platoon!" he called in reply. Posey nodded; Shifty was in First and he was a sharpshooter. The right flank would be fine. If only she could say the same of the left.

She fired off a few more shots wherever she spotted movement before the ground shook beneath her. She ducked and looked up to find that the bazooka had hit its mark. One of the Panzers was down.

"Covering fire!" someone who sounded like Winters shouted. Posey paid it no mind. The left flank needed to be defended and it felt like she was the only person there to do it.

She fired off round after round, ducking only to reload. Her hands burned with how tight her grip was and her neck ached from the odd angle it was at in the horizontal firing position. Still, she continued shooting. Whenever she saw movement, she fired and hoped she'd hit her target; she didn't have time to wait and check for herself.

Posey ducked to reload when the ground shook again, but stronger this time. The shaking was steadier, less like a bomb and more like an earthquake, and there was a rush of sound coming from her left. She turned to find the group of bushes being flattened under a stampede of reinforcements.

"Shermans!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up at the sight of them. One of them fired its first shot and hit a Panzer head-on. Posey cheered and heard Webster whoop from where he was a little ways to her right. "Fucking get them!" she shouted into the fray.

Her distraction by their now-recovered and better than ever left flank was short-lived. Winters' booming voice drew her attention back to the battle. "Lets go! Pour it on them! Let them have it, come on!"

She began firing once more, with a newfound vigour that accompanied the reassurance that she wasn't alone on their left flank anymore. She fired shot after shot, round after round, adrenaline pumping through her and filling her with energy. She shot like her life depended on it.

The Shermans were ruthless, taking down men and Panzers alike. They pressed forwards, leaving the Germans no choice but to retreat. Even as they did, men and Panzers leaving the battlefield together, Posey continued to shoot. She fired until her gun needed reloading, even when no one else was anymore, before slipping back into the hedgerow and lowering herself to the ground. She heaved a huge sigh of both relief and exhaustion. The adrenaline was beginning to dwindle, leaving lethargy in its stead.

All along the line, Easy Company men began to cheer and whoop at their last-minute victory. For a considerable time they'd been the losing side. Posey mustered a smile but could express her joy little beyond that; her wound was aching again, likely because of how long she'd had to lay on it to fire, and her head ached from concentration.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there like that before she saw Webster approaching in her peripheral vision. "We're moving out," he told her once he was close enough. "You hurt?"

Posey shook her head and mustered a smile. "No. I'm fine." She hobbled to her feet and followed after him through the hedgerow, all the while she thought on all they'd just done to take this field - all of that and they were just leaving it behind. Not for the first time she was glad she wasn't an officer because war was still, and probably always would be, a mystery to her.

The 'three days and three nights' General Taylor had asked of them when they were about to jump into Normandy became a distant memory very quickly. After those three days had been up, before they'd even taken Carentan, Posey had wondered how long they'd end up being stuck in France. Now, though, as the days went on and on, filled with walking and digging foxholes and patrols, she thought they might never be sent back to England at all. Maybe they were in it for the long haul, now. Maybe they'd be staying on the mainland until the war was over. Maybe she'd never make it back home, like John had predicted.

As the days passed, the number of patrols they were sent out on increased exponentially. Kraut hunting, some of the men called these patrols. Looking for trouble was what Posey called them herself. Superior officers who weren't on the front lines themselves would wake up and decide they wanted a certain patch of land scouted out, or perhaps they wanted to up the regiment's kill count. Either way, each day, sometimes multiple times a day, groups of men would be sent out and would generally return with fewer able-bodied men than they'd left with. 

Posey always counted herself lucky when she wasn't picked for a patrol. 

Today was not one of her lucky days. 

There weren't many of them out on this patrol. It was close to nightfall and the rest of the company had already dug in for the night, so Winters had sent as few of his men as he could when he'd gotten the order. He was a good CO, Posey had to give him that, but that didn't make her any happier about being one of the unlucky few. 

Compton was their ranking officer and he led from the front. Crouched low as he navigated the trees of whatever forest in whatever part of Normandy they were in now, all Posey could see of him was the back of his helmet. Behind Compton was Guarnere, serving as an advisor of sorts, and behind Guarnere was Luz, their way of communicating an SOS if they needed to. Posey was a step behind them, an expert marksman in place of the lone sharpshooter who remained after all the combat they'd seen; Shifty was always getting sent out on these patrols, bless him, so Posey couldn't be too irritated that she was serving as his locum. Behind Posey was Toye, and then Malarkey, and then Liebgott. They were without a medic on this particular occasion. Doc Roe was up to his neck in it already. 

The group made their way through the forest as quietly as possible, each turning their eyes every which way, on the lookout for Germans. Posey thought her lack of nerves served as evidence for how often she'd been sent out on these patrols; her heartbeat was steady and her fingers settled where they gripped her gun. She just wanted to get this over with. 

Luz came to a halt in front of her so Posey did too, and the group crouched as one. Compton held up a clenched fist to order them to remain down. Posey watched as he remained crouched as close to the ground as he could get, a big man as he was, and ventured cautiously forwards. She hadn't heard anything herself so Compton must have seen something. That didn't bode well. That meant that whatever it was was closer than what could be considered a safe distance. 

Compton travelled a few meters further before stopping again, his eyes trained straight ahead of him. He stared a few moments, likely devising a plan of either attack or escape, before turning and gesturing something to Guarnere; it was hard for Posey to see behind the two crouched bulks ahead of her. 

Guarnere turned and his eyes landed on Posey. She held her breath as she awaited the inevitable. 

"Wells, up front," Guarnere ordered her in a pitched whisper. "Stay low and be quiet."

Posey nodded but wanted to roll her eyes. She knew how to conduct herself on a patrol. 

The few meters between where the group was gathered and where Compton was crouched seemed like a few miles. Posey was reminded very starkly of D-Day, when she'd had to crawl her way through multiple fields; even with men she trusted in front of her and behind her, she felt equally as exposed now. 

By the time Posey made it to Compton, her nerves had decided to show up. Her heartrate remained steady but her stomach had turned queasy. Her palms sweated against the metal of her gun. 

"Sir?"

Compton didn't look at her, simply beckoned her forwards. Once she was crouched just behind his right shoulder he pointed. Posey followed his gesture to what looked like a German outpost.

"Sniper," Compton whispered. "Probably picking off passing patrols."

Posey nodded. "I'll get him," she promised. "But I'll need to be closer."

Compton shot a glance at her. "How much closer?"

"I don't have a sniper rifle, sir," she explained in a hushed whisper. "I have the same gun as everyone else."

Compton nodded. "Go as far as you need. We'll be right behind you for backup."

"Keep a ways back," Posey cautioned under her breath. "We'll need to be quiet, and if I miss he'll know where we are."

Compton patted her on the shoulder and leaned in close. "So don't miss," he said, and gave her shoulder another pat before heading back to tell the others what was going on. 

Alone once more, Posey drew in a shuddering breath. She lifted her gun until it was held parallel to her body, tilted skyward, and shot a single glance back. The eyes of the patrol were on her, trusting her to keep them safe. 

When she faced forwards again, Posey began to move. She remained crouched as she crept forwards, the orange of the sunset dancing in and out of her vision as it crashed through the gaps in the trees. She was reminded briefly of sneaking her way to the bathrooms in the middle of the night during training. Hopefully all of that practise in stealth would serve her well now. 

She pressed silently forwards until the back of the sniper was about as close as the targets had been at the rifle range during training. She imagined it was a dummy she was shooting at. She'd made kill shots with countless dummies. She could do this. 

Posey calculated her windage quickly and then adjusted her elevation. She prayed her calculations were accurate. 

Conscious of the pressure of eyes on the back of her head, all she wanted to do was turn around and check that the rest of the patrol were still there, that she wasn't as alone as she felt, this close to a German and completely exposed. Still, she kept her eyes on her target and lowered the muzzle of her rifle. She aimed it at the sniper's head. She fired. 

The sniper dropped and as he did she fired another bullet into his back. Posey turned and ran, not bothering with crouching anymore. As soon as she was back with the patrol, they all made their escape. 

"Nice shot, Wells," Compton told her once they were back to where the company had dug in for the night. 

"Thank you, sir," Posey replied, breathless from the run as much from the tension her body had held in preparation for taking the shot. 

Compton clapped her on the back and accelerated ahead of the rest of them, catching sight of Winters beside one of the officers' foxholes. 

Posey slowed, pressing a hand to her heart and finding Teddy, keeping her company like always. As the rest of the patrol passed her and patted her on the back as well, Posey allowed herself a smile. She would live to see another sunrise, and she owed this one to herself.


	42. Wait

Posey's hair had never been so dirty. Her entire body was caked in dirt and mud and, in some places, blood - both hers and other people's - but she was most conscious of her hair. It lay plastered against her forehead whenever it fell into her face, feeling heavier and thicker than it ever had, even when it had been long. It felt claggy, and greasy, and horrible, its golden blonde now a dull brown. This was the first time she'd ever been grateful to have cut off her hair. 

She sat alone in a foxhole in whatever part of Normandy they were in now, helping to hold the line. Since the Battle of Bloody Gulch their time in France had been more reminiscent of the Great War than anything she'd been trained for - sat in holes in the ground, preventing the Germans from pushing them back and taking more territory. Her father had never spoken about his time in the trenches but Posey had learned about the first war in school; she'd learnt about reserve trenches and support trenches and front-line trenches, about going over the top to engage with the enemy, but she'd never been taught about the waiting. Waiting for the Germans to attack. To shell. To bombard. To do anything. 

At the present, Posey was waiting for her turn on watch. She was supposed to be sleeping because she'd be on watch during the night but the sunset was too vibrant just now. She was tired, that much was true, but she didn't feel particularly sleepy. Exhausted by life but not so much by labour, really; Shifty had gone out on patrol today, so she'd been spared. Still, Posey closed her eyes as she tilted her head skyward, allowing the sun's final stand against the barrage of night to wash over her. It was orange. Always orange. Halfway between yellow, for happiness, and red, for blood. It seemed fitting, really; each of them hung in the balance between those two exact things - either they'd survive the war and have a shot at happiness, or they'd gasp their last breaths on the battlefields of Europe in a puddle of their own blood.

Posey hated orange. The light was warm, though. 

She sat in silence for a while, drinking in the sounds around her. Men from surrounding foxholes could be heard talking, laughing, sometimes singing, though their jollity was considerably less than the first night they'd spent in foxholes. Living between various holes in the ground got old fast, and God knew they'd been at it for long enough. Posey wondered briefly whether General Taylor felt even the slightest bit of guilt for promising them relief after three days and three nights, or whether he'd known all along that that would never be enough. So much had been asked of them during their time in France so far that Posey had a difficult time believing the general hadn't known they'd need to stay. 

"Wells?"

Posey kept her eyes closed and remained motionless. She wasn't in the mood for talking just now. 

Still, Guarnere persisted, as always. "Wells."

"What?" she hissed, opening one eye to shoot him a glare before returning to her original pose. 

"Not asleep yet, then?" Guarnere asked, a smirk in his voice. Posey heard the muffled thud of his boots hitting the ground beside her before he plonked himself down into the dirt. 

Posey huffed. "Clearly not."

"What you thinkin' about?"

She shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. "Nothing."

Guarnere waited a beat before venturing, "You want me to get Johnny?"

Posey opened her eyes and turned to him fully, her eyebrows set low over her eyes. "No," she replied, keeping her voice even. "I'm allowed to have thoughts and they're allowed to be private. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm desperate to talk about my feelings all the time."

"So you admit you weren't thinkin' nothin', then," was all Guarnere said in reply. 

Posey made a show of rolling her eyes. "Was there any particular reason you returned?"

Guarnere shrugged. "Finished checkin' in on everyone. This is my foxhole too, you know." Before Posey could retort, he asked, "How's that wound doin'?"

"Fine."

"Does it still hurt?"

She took a moment to consider the question, sat up straighter and moved around a bit to check, and nodded. "Yeah, but not as much." Or maybe she'd just gotten used to it. She supposed it didn't really matter, either way. 

Guarnere nodded and they fell into a brief silence. After a few beats, he asked, "So what were you thinkin' about before?"

This man was almost as stubborn as she was herself. Only an answer would satisfy him, so that was what she gave. "My mum." It was only once she'd said the words that she realised they were true. Behind the veil of thoughts of death and life and General Taylor had been thoughts of her mother. Indeed, she didn't know that she could honestly say she was ever _not_ thinking of her mother. Still, she made no move to elaborate. Guarnere could do with that information what he willed. 

"You miss 'er?" he asked after a short pause. 

Posey turned her eyes on the burnt orange of the sky, already being chased away by a deep navy blue, and hummed her affirmative. 

Guarnere didn't respond for a while, and whilst this had been what Posey had wanted, she found herself unsettled all of a sudden. After a considerable pause she turned to look at Guarnere beside her and found his eyes were on the sky, too, watching as night crashed in once more, their only indication of the passing of time. He must have felt her eyes on him, for he spoke up, "I been thinkin' about my brother a lot."

That made Posey's ears prick up. Johnny had begun to tell her about this brother of Guarnere's just after Carentan but they'd been interrupted. She had forgotten all about it afterwards. She waited patiently for an elaboration that never came and hid a smile; maybe Malarkey hadn't been too far off the mark back at Toccoa when he'd called the pair of them 'too similar'. 

"Where's your brother?" Posey wondered quietly. Her eyes searched the side of his face, watching as he attempted to mask any emotions. His eyes were an open book, though, when he made the mistake of turning to look at her. It was only a brief glance but Posey saw what she needed to and what she dreaded all in one: the kind of sorrow that only came from losing a loved one. His brother had died. 

Posey nodded and Guarnere looked to the sky again. She did the same, offering him his privacy. He wasn't crying but the situation was so familiar Posey couldn't help but smile as she drew out Teddy and placed him gently in Guarnere's lap. He didn't look at her, but he smiled down at the little teddy bear now sat on his knee.

"If you squeeze his paws," Posey began softly, her eyes on her bear, "he'll bring you luck." She felt Guarnere's eyes on her as she went on, "Protection. So your family won't lose another son."

She gazed up into the heavens again, leaving him to it, so she didn't find out whether he squeezed Teddy's paws or not. A little while later she was called to go on watch. She left her teddy bear under Guarnere's protection whilst she was gone and was given him back the following morning when she returned. The pair of them exchanged a nod as she tucked the bear back into her ODs. Posey shut her eyes and tried to sleep. 

The sun rose, lilac painting the sky as opposed to the orange of sunset, and another day meant another line to hold and another patrol. Kraut hunting, looking for trouble, something to bide the time. No one ever wanted to go on these patrols but their numbers were too few by now for any of them to avoid it. 

The number of men Easy Company had made the jump with seemed astronomical now. It seemed strange to think they'd ever been that many. Full planes had gone down on D-Day, some men had been hit in the planes, some had never found their way back to the company, and others had died in the various bits of combat they saw. Each day seemed to bring with it another casualty, even when they didn't see combat; as Posey watched Blithe, Johnny, and Dukeman set out to scout out a building in the middle of nowhere, a bad feeling settling low in her stomach with how quiet it was, she thought about Tab and how he'd been stabbed by one of their own in the middle of the night. How any of them were supposed to survive, she had no idea.

Posey watched on closely from where she was crouched in some bushes with a mixture of First and Second Platoon - in itself an indication of how low their numbers had fallen. Blithe was lead scout and Posey wasn't sure the dreamy look in his eye had faded just yet. She worried about him and kept her gun aimed at the building, even though she knew she couldn't have hit anything if she fired from this height. But a shell-shocked lead scout would not be good news.

Blithe split from Johnny and Dukeman to get a better visual on the building. He took a good look before turning to beckon the others closer, just as a bullet hit him in the neck. He fell sideways immediately.

Posey hopped to her feet and began shooting at the building, alternating between both of the windows and hoping to hit a sniper. All the while, Johnny and Dukeman rushed over to grab Blithe and drag him back to cover.

"Top window, right!" someone shouted. Posey aimed her gun there and continued firing.

When Welsh ordered, "Cease fire! Cease fire!", she lowered her gun. Silence fell over them once more, until the frantic rustling of bushes behind her had Posey turning to glance back.

"Move, move!" Roe shouted as he pushed through the gathered men. "Comin' through, give me room! Out of my way!"

Posey crouched back in the bushes and watched as Roe tended to Blithe, her face expressionless and her eyes miles away. She knew this could have been avoided. She was sure they all knew. Blithe hadn't been up to taking point on a patrol and, beyond that, the patrol was pointless. Their still being in Normandy was pointless and good men were dying because of it. She was tired of waking up in a foxhole and wondering whether that would be the last sunrise she ever saw.

When Welsh gave the order they began to move out, Johnny assisting Roe with taking Blithe to the aid station. Once the rest of them were back and gathered with the rest of the company, no one spoke. They were exhausted. It was easier to sit down and drink water and await orders. No one was interested in pretending everything was fine anymore.

"Easy Company," Winters called, requiring little volume to get their attention. He wore the tiniest of smiles as he informed them, "We're being pulled off the front line to a field camp north of Utah Beach. We'll have hot food and showers and a roof over our heads. Then we'll be heading back to England."

Posey wanted to smile but her face didn't seem to share in the sentiment. Truly, she was relieved, but she was also exhausted. And whilst hot food, showers, and a place to sleep that wasn't a hole in the ground all sounded so wonderful she could have wept, she didn't let herself believe they'd make it there without suffering yet more pointless deaths.

Still, an end was in sight. And if she made it back to England she could only hope it would be for good this time.


	43. Replacements

Being back in Aldbourne brought with it more comfort than Posey thought she'd felt throughout the entire war. Staying with Mrs. Daniels had been more physically comfortable, certainly, but being back on home soil with her life and her secret both still largely intact was a unique kind of exhilaration. Posey took care to be consciously grateful for her life as much as possible; she knew better than to take it for granted by now.

She dreaded visiting John, so she put it off for a few days. At one point she decided she wasn't going to visit him at all - not until the war was over and she was safely out of harm's way. But she wanted to prove him wrong more than she wanted to avoid him. She'd experienced combat now - she'd experienced _D-Day_ , one of the biggest invasions in military history, and even he couldn't say that. And, really, she knew he'd been right before when he'd called her green and naïve. She had been. But now she knew better; she knew how precious life was and how easily it could be taken away. And if she was going to kick the bucket anytime soon, she was going to do it without any regrets. So she needed to pay a visit to her brother.

When she went to visit John she found him asleep, a nurse at his bedside. The nurse offered Posey a smile. "I can wake him for you, if you like," she said kindly. "But he should be awake soon."

Posey nodded back to the nurse and offered a smile of her own. "I'll just wait, no need to wake him."

The nurse pulled up a chair for Posey and situated it at John's bedside, on the right-hand side of his bed, where she always sat. "Thank you," Posey said softly. The nurse nodded and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder before leaving them in peace. Posey wondered what had prompted the nurse to do so, whether she'd looked particularly sad or maybe just tired. Maybe she had the same look in her eyes now that she'd first been shocked to find in her brother's. Or maybe the nurse was just kind.

When John began to stir Posey fixed a smile onto her face. She sat up straighter in her chair and crossed her hands in her lap. She wanted him to be able to take one look at her and know, instinctively, that she'd been changed - that she'd seen combat and not frozen. That she'd done him proud.

When he looked at her his eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing back so soon?"

Posey's face fell. "Why are you _never_ happy to see me?" she demanded. She was fed up of his holier-than-thou attitude. She was a combat veteran now; she had hauled her arse across Normandy by herself on D-Day, unarmed and disorientated, had had a knife pressed to her throat, cleared houses in a battle, been shot, and held her own in a shootout. If he wouldn't give her respect willingly then she'd demand it.

"I thought you went off to war. I read about the invasion in the paper," John said.

Posey tilted her chin up as she met his gaze brazenly. "Yes," she replied. "I did. And now I'm back until my unit gets redeployed. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

After a beat, John ventured, "So, you've experienced combat, now, I suppose."

Posey rolled her eyes. "Yes. I have." Even though he wasn't looking at her, John's eyebrows lifted in what was perhaps a prompt for her to go on. Posey tried to remind herself that she didn't have anything to prove to him but she found herself elaborating before she could decide against it. "I jumped into Normandy on D-Day. If you read about it then I suppose you know about the triple A on the planes. And about how many men didn't even make it to the ground. In which case I suppose you also know that we were dropped all over the place." She squared her shoulders as she watched her brother's side profile closely. "I navigated Normandy alone. I took part in the Battle of Carentan and the Battle of Bloody Gulch. I shot down more Germans than I can count and only sustained a single bullet wound in the process. So you can relinquish your superiority complex now, John. I think it's about time, don't you?"

John shook his head and kept his eyes straight forwards. He didn't respond for a while but when he did his voice was low, "Thinking you know everything there is to know about combat will get you killed, Posey."

"I don't think I know everything there is to know about combat," she replied, trying her best to keep her voice even. He was so infuriating she wanted to scream. "What I _think_ is that you take a great deal of satisfaction in looking down your nose at me because you've experienced more combat than I have. And I'm sick of it. It's not a competition. I came here because you're the only family I have left and because life is precious and if it gets taken from me I don't want to die knowing we were on bad terms. So would it kill you to at least pretend to be happy to see me?" She huffed out a breath and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

John didn't look at her but he sighed loudly. Quietly, he admitted, "I _am_ happy to see you." After a beat, he added, albeit reluctantly, "I'm glad you're safe."

"Thank you."

A long silence fell over them. Just like always, this wasn't at all the visit Posey had expected. She didn't know why she continued to expect so much of him.

After a while, Posey had had enough of the silence. She informed him, "I met a downed airman in Normandy," in as nonchalant a voice as she was able. She didn't want to get his hopes up that this downed airman was someone he knew because she had no idea who he was herself.

John's eyes shot to her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "You did?"

Posey nodded, chewing briefly on her bottom lip. "Yeah. I didn't ask his name - not that I think he would have told me, regardless - so I don't know whether he was anyone you'd know. I only mention it because he said there was a high reward going for any locals that gave up downed airman. Surely that means there must be at least a few of them wandering around, right?"

John huffed. "Yeah, if they haven't already been given up. This isn't anything we didn't know before."

"I just mean," Posey went on, fighting hard to retain her patience, "that if this man has survived thus far and managed to link up with the Resistance then there's a chance that your lot have, too. Things may be bad in occupied France but the French are still human beings, and there's a _Resistance_. And with every bit of France that gets liberated that's another lot of airmen that get to come home." Posey watched John closely, all but begging for him to quirk even the smallest of smiles. "There's hope, is what I'm saying. The odds are poor, but so are the odds of getting through basic training and combat with no one finding out that you're a woman." He didn't need to know that there were people who knew; it wasn't relevant to her point and he'd only give her a bollocking for carelessness and naïveté.

John didn't seem willing to concede and Posey sighed. She supposed, however, he had good reason to be pessimistic; he'd lost all of them. His entire crew. And the only other one who had made it home had died. Life hadn't been very kind to either of the Wells siblings, but it had been especially unkind to John.

Posey left a little while later, after they'd lapsed into meaningless small talk and it had become clear that the gap between them only seemed to widen as time went by, not close.

Arriving back in Aldbourne brought with it a sense of solace. She supposed experience had bonded her closer to the men in her company whilst it had also drawn her further away from her family, but her company was a family in itself. Or her platoon was, at least. She felt safe with them, or as safe as one could feel in the middle of a war, and wondered just when that had happened.

Of course, however, this sense of security was soon taken away from her, like all things Posey held dear eventually were. When she set foot back in Second Platoon's barracks she was greeted by a puddle of unfamiliar faces, like ink spilled on a poem she knew by heart. She knew without having to be told who they were, but Liebgott filled her in anyway.

"Oh, Duckie, nice of you to join us," he drawled. "You're just in time to meet the replacements."

In the wake of the casualties in Normandy, it was only natural that there arose a need for replacements. Yet more people to lie to and hide from. With every man she let in there seemed to crop up a dozen more she had to shut out. And this lot were filling the boots and bunks of the men who hadn't made it back from France. Posey looked over them with only interest enough to gauge who might give her trouble.

Lieb went on talking, making his dislike of the replacements known through loudly uttered remarks and a back turned on them. Posey was only half-listening as she crossed the room to her bunk. She sat down and frowned as her eyes landed on the bunk across from her.

"That's Popeye's bunk," she said, interrupting whatever Lieb had been saying. Her eyes remained trained on the duffle bag laying on the mattress, fresh sheets folded at the foot of the bed and the footlocker unopened. "And he's coming back."

Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the sight of all of the duffle bags occupying the beds of absent friends. "And Tab. And Lip," she went on. "They're coming back, and they'll need their bunks when they do."

"They been ordered to take whichever bunks are free, Duckie," Bull spoke into the silence that had fallen. It took considerable effort for Posey to drag her eyes up to meet his apologetic ones. He gnawed on his cigar as though regretting the words even as they emerged from his mouth, as though hating that he had to say them. "The others'll sort 'emselves out when they get back."

Posey sought out Johnny's eyes and saw the fire in them. It dulled some of her own rage, knowing that she wasn't the only one feeling it. "Okay," she said, and looked down at her mattress. She fiddled with the sheets. "Fine."

The divide between the replacements and the veterans was clear. Even when the two divided groups scattered to their own bunks, tension was cold and heavy in the air. Posey sat awhile in thought, considering the replacements. They sat mostly by themselves, and those of them who had ended up on adjacent bunks spoke in hushed whispers.

Posey sighed; as much as she was reluctant for these new recruits to try to fill the places of her friends, and with zero experience at that, she knew they must have felt more awkward in that moment than Posey had herself on her first day of bootcamp. She knew what it was like to feel like an outsider. Really, she still felt like one sometimes, when the men would talk about family or girlfriends or wives. Now that she was on the other side of the equation, she couldn't allow herself to revel in it. It was too horrible. There was little worse than feeling alone.

"So, uh," she began tentatively, addressing the boy on the bunk opposite hers - Popeye's bunk, "what's your name?"

The boy took a moment to answer. Posey recognised he hadn't known she'd been talking to him, but when he realised he jolted in place and sat up straighter. "Babe," he replied with a nod her way. "Babe Heffron."

Posey smiled to herself; whilst the nickname seemed to suit this new recruit down to the ground, all flushed cheeks and boyish grace as he was, she knew she wouldn't feel comfortable calling him that. Whenever she had a sweetheart of her own - if, indeed, that ever came to be - she wanted to be comfortable in the knowledge that he was the first she'd ever called something so sweet. "What's your real name?"

"Edward," he answered, his flushed cheeks seeming to glow under the barracks lights. He shifted uncomfortably where he sat. "And you're Duckie?" he wondered, seeming nervous at what her response might be.

Posey couldn't help her laugh. "Yep." This boy was actually frightened of her. Her. Who had earned the nickname Duckie because she was so small and so un-terrifying. Maybe these replacements wouldn't be so bad to have around.

"What's your real name?" Heffron ventured warily, treading lightly lest he say the wrong thing.

Before Posey could reply, someone got to their feet a few bunks down from Heffron. "None 'a your fuckin' business, fat-head," Guarnere growled, and made his way towards Posey. "Fuckin' five jump chump," he grumbled under his breath all the while.

Posey watched him with thinly veiled irritation, though she couldn't help the amusement dancing in her eyes. She knew Guarnere had noticed it when he grinned. She hated that he could make her laugh, always had.

"Five jump chump?" she asked, watching him as he came to stand on the other side of her bunk, right next to the door.

Guarnere smirked as he withdrew a cigarette and lit it. "Yeah. These peewees've done five jumps in their whole life, and they were only back in jump school about two weeks ago. They been raced through trainin' to get here. Five jump chumps."

Posey laughed. "Lucky them, then, I say," she declared, only to irritate him. "At least they didn't have to endure the wrath of Sobel."

"Shut up, Duckie," Johnny called from the other side of the room. Posey laughed because she agreed with the sentiments of the group on the matter; these replacements were too green to be trusted just now, and they'd need to be put through their paces before they could even think about going into combat.

"You hear that Malarkey got promoted to sergeant?" Guarnere asked Posey, casually leaning against the wall of the barracks.

Posey shook her head. "When?"

"When you were gone. Got some gaps to fill after D-Day."

Posey smiled sadly and nodded. She could hardly believe she wasn't one of them.

"Well, anyway. Since we're talkin' about promotions, I recommended you for sharpshooter and you been approved. You'll start trainin' in the next few days." Posey watched him with mouth agape, hardly believing what she was hearing. Guarnere seemed to shrivel under her gaze and shrugged nonchalantly. "It's better pay."

"You listened to what I said," she commented, eyes growing brighter by the second. "In Carentan. When I said I needed a sniper rifle."

Guarnere shot a quick glance at Heffron, who was trying to be subtle about his eavesdropping but couldn't have been more obvious, before leaning in closer to speak quieter. "You're a good shot," he told Posey, seeming physically pained by extending the compliment. "And we got some gaps to fill," he repeated.

"And you picked me," Posey said, her delight clear in her voice. Though, indeed, one could have been deaf and still discerned it, for it was also written all over her face.

Guarnere rolled his eyes and leaned ever closer to lower his voice a further octave, but made sure to maintain a sizeable enough distance that he could sleep at night knowing he hadn't been improper with a lady. "Listen, don't take this as me meanin' I'm soft on you. 'Cause I ain't."

Posey grinned wildly. "I think you are a bit."

"I ain't."

"I think you are a bit soft on me."

Guarnere rolled his eyes and headed back to his bunk without another word. Posey watched him go with a beaming smile. She was finally getting her sniper rifle.


	44. Smile

The M1903 Springfield, known colloquially as the M1903A4, took some getting used to. Posey felt she was a master of the M1 Garand by this point - she could do strapping, windage, elevation, aiming, and firing without a second thought, and all to a reliable degree of accuracy. Sharpshooters, however, didn't shoot with standard issue semi-automatic rifles and thus an upgrade was in order.

The sergeant training her hadn't been nearly as much help as Shifty had. Posey had sought him out in First Platoon's barracks prior to her first lesson in sharpshooting, and he'd unloaded unto her all of the wisdom he could think of when put on the spot - tips on how to work around a frequently fogged-up scope and on how to adjust the firing positions to advantage with a slightly bigger rifle, amongst other things. Things which, incidentally, the sergeant left out when training her.

Posey spent every bit of free time she could at the rifle range, becoming acquainted with this new weapon which would inevitably be the difference between living or dying on the battlefield. How different things were this time around compared to when she'd first started training to use the M1 back at Toccoa. She felt about a hundred years old compared to then.

Incidentally, she felt about a hundred years old compared to the replacements, too, even though she knew some of them were older than her. Posey cringed to think what her brother must have thought of her before she'd seen her first lot of combat, back when she'd been all bright-eyed optimism and thoughtless naïveté. She could finally understand why he'd drilled into her how bad it was going to be; these replacements didn't have the faintest of clues what they were in for.

Training picked up back up again to accommodate for the replacements' lack of it. Indeed, after D-Day, when it had become apparent that they'd be needing an awful lot of replacements, the replacements' training had been cut short and they'd been shipped across the Atlantic as soon as possible. The veterans were suffering for it now; long, gruelling hours of field training reminded Posey starkly of Camp Mackall, but now she knew that these simulations were mere mirages of the real thing. One could never be properly prepared for combat without having seen it for themselves.

Between training for a promotion and training for yet more combat, the undisputed highlight of being back in England was when various of the wounded men of the company began to filter back in.

"Lip!" cried Luz upon catching sight of Lipton entering the barracks one evening.

Posey felt her first real smile in days begin to spread across her face; Carwood Lipton, a gentle and caring soul as he was, was certainly a sight for sore, exhausted eyes.

"How are you doing?" Posey asked immediately, rising from her place on her bunk to greet him by the door.

Lipton turned to her and offered half a smile. Immediately, Posey's eyes fell upon the scar cutting the right side of his face in half, an angry red horizontal line goose-stepping from his nose all the way back to his ear. Her smile faded somewhat, but if Lip noticed he didn't say anything.

"Been doing just fine, Wells," Lipton replied softly, still wearing that kind smile of his. Posey wiped the sadness from her expression and beamed, glad to hear he was okay. "How are you doing?" he went on to ask. "Heard you got hit as well."

Posey shrugged. "A lot better, thank you. I don't have nearly as cool a scar to show for it as you do."

Lipton laughed and shook his head before the rest of Second Platoon's veterans crowded around him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand vigorously.

It was similar every time one of the wounded returned, even if they weren't part of Second Platoon but especially if they were. Never before had Posey experienced anything like the unbridled joy she felt at every man coming safely home from the hospital. The affection she felt for each of them was alien to her. Just like when she'd thought she'd be leaving them after reaching London the first time, Posey was struck by how connected she felt to each of them. She was part of something, here, and she felt it was something really special. Something worthwhile. She felt she'd give her life for these men and knew they'd do the same for her.

Posey didn't know what to do with herself, for she loved them all dearly but couldn't show it. She didn't know how she'd ever let them know the magnitude of what her heart contained for them, not without revealing all of her secrets; she loved them like a family and yet most of them would never know all they'd done for her when her life had lain strewn about in pieces. What they were still doing for her now that her life _lay_ strewn about in pieces.

Filled to the brim with adoration as she was, and with no way to express it, Posey decided to do what she'd been meaning to for a while. She had a letter to write to a woman who didn't deserve to be kept waiting.

The air was warm when Posey ventured outside. The barracks had already been much too stuffy to endure for lengthy periods of time, and filled with excitement as they were now that Lipton was back, Posey knew she wouldn't be able to get anything written whilst she was in there. Instead, she walked a little ways away, down a road leading away from the main village. She didn't walk far - she'd be easily found should anyone come looking for her - but she found amongst the heat of the evening a little pocket of piece in a corner of the world so often filled with noise; she loved the men of Second Platoon dearly, but, God, could they talk.

The quaint little bench Posey found sat facing one of the many fields surrounding Aldbourne. She sat atop it and placed her writing materials to the side a moment, considering her surroundings. Once upon a time, Posey had thought that Aldbourne might be somewhere she'd like to live after the war, should she survive it. After experiencing combat she didn't much want to get ahead of herself, but she knew now that she wouldn't stay in Aldbourne a second longer than the rest of Easy; having such a vibrant spark of life ripped away from her would be difficult enough without being reminded of all of them everywhere she looked.

It was pretty, though, she had to admit. She liked the countryside. And the birds chirped here where they had tended not to in Normandy, scared away by the chaos of battle. These English birds knew nothing of the war raging just across the Channel and boasted it in how passionately they sang their little songs. Their voices were loud and clear in the quiet of early evening, the sunset not having settled in yet and the heat still quite oppressive.

Posey picked up her copy of _Twelfth Night_ , which she'd brought along as a makeshift table, and opened it to the title page. She smiled as she read over Mrs. Daniels' message and felt her heart pang. She really did miss that woman.

All of a sudden she wondered whether this was a good idea at all. It would only worry Mrs. Daniels to find out that Posey was on the front lines now. But Posey hated feeling as though she'd betrayed the woman after all of the kindness she'd shown her, even if it was for her own good. She chewed on the end of her pencil as she thought her predicament over, becoming increasingly desperate for someone to just appear out of nowhere and tell her what to do.

Her prayers went only half-answered, however; someone did appear out of nowhere but they certainly weren't there to tell her what to do. Posey glanced up at the sound of jump boots on cobblestones to find the bright red hair and shining eyes of one Edward Heffron, and couldn't help but laugh at the happy-go-lucky expression he wore as he strolled down the road, his hands tucked deep into his pockets.

It took him a few moments to notice Posey, sat just ahead of where he was walking, but his step faltered when he did. He looked as though he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His face betrayed his conflict on whether to turn around and head back the other way, to continue forwards as though he hadn't seen her at all, or to greet her as though they were friends.

Seeing as though Posey had no one to save her from her own hellish decision making, she decided to take pity on Heffron and take the choice out of his hands.

"Heffron," she called out, and made sure to smile when he looked over at her in earnest. He walked forwards a few paces until he was standing only a little way away from her, then rocked back and forth on his heels. "Where are you headed?" she asked.

"Just on a walk," he replied, glancing left and right as though desperate for a better excuse.

"Haven't seen much of Aldbourne yet?" she guessed. When Heffron nodded, she laughed. "Well, there's not much to see that way. The main village is the other way."

"Right."

Posey sighed, but her small, amused smile pitched it up around the edges. "You don't have to be afraid of me," she told him, laughing as she watched his cheeks flush bright red. He began to stutter his way through a protest before she cut him off. "It's fine." She brushed him aside with a flick of her hand. "I know some of the others can be a bit intimidating but they're sweethearts really. Just don't tell them I said that or they'll rip my head off."

Heffron laughed and seemed to relax somewhat.

Posey smiled and turned back to her writing materials, leaving Heffron to himself to carry on with his walk. She was surprised, however, when he came to stand directly before her.

She glanced up and cocked an eyebrow, and he seemed to shrivel once more under her gaze. "Can I..?" he began, gesturing to the empty space beside her.

Posey nodded and scooted along, though her eyebrows furrowed as Heffron sat down on the bench. She certainly hadn't been expecting this.

For his part, Heffron sat in silence, staring straight ahead at the great expanse of the British countryside laid out before them. Posey waited a few moments and, when he didn't make to say anything, turned back to her blank piece of paper to consider where to begin explaining all that had transpired since she'd left America, and how to do so without exposing herself to the army all the while. Just as she put her pencil to the paper, however, Heffron spoke up.

"Hey, can I, uh, ask you somethin'?"

Posey glanced at him curiously and nodded. He didn't look at her, kept his stare straight ahead, but chewed on his bottom lip a moment before he began speaking. "What's it like? Out there?"

"In the field?" Posey asked, her eyebrows knitted together over her eyes.

Heffron huffed an awkward laugh and shook his head. "I mean in combat. I guess it ain't really anythin' like the field exercises they have us on."

Posey laughed quietly under her breath and shook her head. "No, not much. But the field exercises are important. They'll make sure you at least have some sort of idea what you're supposed to do once you're out there."

Heffron nodded. "So what's it like?"

Posey paused a moment before laying down her writing materials and turning to face Heffron fully. "I don't know whether you're wanting advice but I'll give you some anyway. The best thing you can do in combat is listen to your NCOs. We have some good officers, and Compton is great, but you won't find anyone who cares more about your wellbeing than your non-coms. Listen to what they say and follow their orders to the best of your ability, and that's as best as you can do by yourself once you get out there."

Heffron drunk in her words like a dying man in a desert, blinking rapidly as he took it all in. He nodded and turned to her only once she'd finished speaking. "Sergeant Randleman's my squad leader. He any good?"

Posey laughed and rolled her eyes, though she shot Heffron a smile to let him know it was good-natured. "Bull's one of the best," she promised, her eyes bright as she watched this frightened young fellow hang onto her every word. "He's smart. He knows what he's talking about. If he tells you to do something - anything - you do it and don't ask why. He cares about his men an awful lot - he looked after me after I was wounded, dragged me out of the fray, so I can vouch for that personally."

"Okay," Heffron said, nodding to himself even after they fell back into silence.

Posey giggled to herself once more and shook her head; she could see so much of her old self in this replacement it was like looking through an old photo album. She drew him out of his reverie by nudging his arm. "Where are you from, Heffron?" He didn't need to worry himself with combat just yet. She wanted to see that light back in his eyes.

And light up he did. All prior worry - which he'd clearly tried to hide, though he hadn't done so very well - suddenly vanished from his face. "Philadelphia," he declared with considerable pride, puffing out his chest whether he realised so or not. "South Philly, born and raised."

Posey's own eyes lit up in response. "South Philly!" she exclaimed. Heffron furrowed his eyebrows at her enthusiasm but she offered no explanation. Quietly, however, she knew that this replacement was unknowingly in possession of a secret weapon that may allow him to strike gold where the veterans were concerned. Or, at least, he was if she knew Guarnere half as well as she thought she did.

Still, she didn't tell him. It was, of course, not her place. Though when she sat in the mess hall a little while over an hour later, flanked by Johnny and Guarnere, she turned to the latter and offered a smile.

"What are you grinnin' at?" he asked immediately, watching her warily as he took a sip of water.

Posey's smile broadened. "You're from South Philadelphia, right?"

"South Philly," Guarnere confirmed, nodding. His chest also puffed out as he gave his response, and Posey wondered briefly whether that was something they taught the men of South Philadelphia to do or whether it was simply in their blood to be so proud of where they were from. "Why?"

"There's a replacement -"

"Aw, Duckie, you been out makin' friends with the replacements again?" Luz cut in from opposite her.

Posey rolled her eyes and shot Luz a glance. "They're really not so bad as you think, and, either way, they're not going away." She stifled a smile, thinking back over Heffron's wild eyes and unfocused energy. "They remind me a bit of us at the beginning of training, back at Toccoa."

"Fuck off, Duckie," Perconte drawled from beside Luz.

Guarnere sat up straighter in his seat and Posey rolled her eyes. "Anyway," she carried on, shooting Guarnere a look to ensure he didn't try to defend her honour in the company of men who had no idea she had any honour to be defended, "there's a replacement by the name of Heffron who also happens to be from South Philly. Red hair, pale, quite skinny. Kind of looks like how I imagined Peter Pan when I first read that book."

Guarnere's earnest smile at receiving this information transformed his face; gone was the usual hard set of his jaw and steely look in his eyes, replaced by a certain liveliness that made him look younger, more boyish. Posey smiled as she watched him search the mess hall for a man who suited that description.

After a moment, she tore her eyes away and gazed back down at her food with her smile still set on her face. She knew she'd been right before when she'd thought that the replacements might not be so bad - certainly, nothing too terrible could come of them if the presence of one was able to bring a smile like that to the face of Bill Guarnere.


	45. Gold

Between training to use her new rifle and teaching herself to clean it as thoroughly as she'd been able to clean her M1, Posey tried to stick to Shifty like glue. Most days that objective wasn't necessarily very easy to achieve - Shifty was in First Platoon and tended to just generally be quite elusive - but whenever she managed to get ahold of him, Shifty was always willing to have his brain picked on all things sharpshooting. He always made sure to bestow any wisdom he could think of, too, and his wisdom had thus far proven to be worth its weight in gold.

Their sudden abundance of time spent together, where previously they'd only really known each other in passing, formed a nice, if rather unexpected, friendship. Indeed, when Posey was formally presented with her new insignia to sew onto her uniform, - the same insignia as the PFCs wore, though she was actually considered a specialist - Shifty was one of the first to congratulate her.

He sat with her on her bunk afterwards as she began to sew the new insignia on, and took care to scrutinise her rifle with an expert's eye.

"Yeah, you got the same scope as me," he remarked idly, holding it up to his face. "It been foggin' up when you train?"

Posey nodded. "Only when it rains, though, really."

"In rain and heat it'll tend to fog up," Shifty agreed.

Posey stifled a smile. "Lets hope when we go back overseas they send us somewhere perfectly neutral, then - not too hot and not too rainy."

"Maybe it'd work good in the snow," he joked.

She laughed. "Only until the snow melts, I'd have thought."

When Shifty nodded his agreement and returned to analysing her rifle, Posey turned her eyes back on her sewing. Once upon a time she'd been very good at sewing - having been raised a lady, her mother had always insisted upon it - so as a sort of testament to this she tried her best to make her work as neat as possible. Unlike Sobel, she knew Winters wouldn't much care how neat her insignia was sewn on as long as it was in accordance with regulations and didn't fall off, but doing it well felt important. Even though her mother would likely have been ashamed of half of the decisions she'd made since leaving home, Posey was determined to prove to herself that she hadn't forgotten what she'd been taught. She was no lady anymore, but that was out of necessity; maybe one day, though, she could finally do her mother proud. Remembering her needlepoint lessons seemed to be a good way to consolidate that.

"I like your bear," Shifty spoke up, tearing Posey from her reverie.

She looked up at him before following his eyes to Teddy, and smiled. "Thank you," she said. "His name is Teddy. He's for good luck." This tended to be the excuse she gave, even though she'd promised herself at some point during training to stop lying so much. Still, it seemed a good way to explain why a young man would have brought a teddy bear to war with him, knowing of the ridicule he might face from his peers as a result - generally, she found, people could appreciate a good luck charm. Some lies still served a purpose, even if they were all beginning to taste as sour in her mouth as each other.

"Teddy," Shifty repeated, and inclined his head towards the bear as though in greeting. To Posey, he said, "Good name."

She laughed. "I was three! It seemed imaginative at the time."

"You take him to France with you?"

Posey nodded, wondering whether she should feel proud or bashful to admit it. She didn't really feel either; it hadn't been a decision she'd consciously made, to bring him along, because she'd always just assumed he'd be coming. When she was packing up all of her gear ready to jump, it had seemed just as natural to pack Teddy as it had to pack her rifle. He was an essential. How was she supposed to go to France without her best friend?

From his place on his bunk, Luz interjected, "That bear's seen more combat than all 'a these replacements put together."

Posey giggled. "More than Sobel, too."

"He ain't lookin' so bad considerin'," Perconte commented, watching Teddy with an inquisitive eye.

Posey picked him up and turned him around to display the patch of dried blood now covering his right leg. She shrugged. "Considering he was only a few inches away from where I got shot, he's looking wonderful. The lucky bastard's more whole than I am."

This earned her a round of laughs. It felt like she was back at Toccoa again. She wondered when looking back on Toccoa had become so nostalgic, memories she was fond to recall as opposed to relieved that they were over. Of course, Toccoa had brought with it Currahee and the PT course and the night marches and learning to hide her identity for the first time, but she supposed it was easier to remember through rose-tinted glasses than to remember everything being as rough as it actually was. She wondered whether one day the war might seem that way to a lot of people, too - a time of unprecedented camaraderie for all those who had served, of a sense of belonging and importance, of feeling like one had a purpose.

She couldn't imagine herself ever feeling that way, but then again she didn't know that she would live long enough to warrant looking back on the war as a thing of the past.

"How old's that thing anyway?" Skip asked, throwing a gesture to Teddy as Posey placed him gently back down on her pillow.

"Same age as my brother." There was something sad in the way she smiled at the thought. "When my parents had him they knew they'd want another child so they bought two teddy bears - so we couldn't argue that one was better than the other, I think. My brother doesn't have his anymore, though, so mine's the only survivor. He's twenty-two, three years older than I am."

"Older than most of the fuckin' replacements, then," Perconte commented.

Posey rolled her eyes through a smile. "Some of the replacements are older than me, though. I lied about my age to get in."

"That explains a lot," commented a voice from the doorway.

Posey was grinning before she'd even turned around. "Tab!"

Just like they always did when one of their own returned, the veterans of Second Platoon leapt to their feet to greet him.

"Hey, Talbert!" Liebgott called, drawing out his vowels as he clapped Tab on the back. "How'd the hospital treat ya?"

"Not too bad, Lieb, not too bad," Tab replied with a smug grin. "Lots of nurses. Too bad you couldn't be there."

"I'm sure you can put in a good word with Smith for me," Lieb replied with a wide grin. "Ask him whether he can poke me instead next time."

"He didn't fuckin' _poke_ me," Tab protested. "See how you like being stabbed with a bayonet," he grumbled.

"How'd it happen anyway?" asked Posey. "We heard you were telling him to go on watch when it happened."

Tab nodded and rolled his eyes. "Remember that kraut poncho I found on D-Day?"

Posey had common sense enough to put two and two together in her head - as, it seemed, did Luz, judging by the loud hiss he made.

"To be fair," Posey began, grinning already, "that wasn't perhaps one of your best decisions."

"You walked the line in the pitch black dressed like a fuckin' kraut, Talbert?" Johnny asked, baffled.

"It was raining!" Tab attempted to defend.

"Yeah! On all of us!" Skip exclaimed.

"Hey, Tab, you see any of the others in the hospital?" asked Shifty softly. All ribbing ended immediately as everyone leaned forwards in the hopes of gaining news on the other wounded.

Tab nodded. "Smokey got back same time as me, he's over in First's barracks. Popeye's still there, he's doing fine but they're keeping him a little longer 'cause he can't walk yet. And Blithe... well..."

"Well?" Posey wondered, but Tab's pause didn't bode well.

"He's bandaged up pretty bad. I don't know how he's doing but I don't think he's coming back."

A silence fell over the group as they let the words settle. So many men already weren't coming back that thinking about dying in combat was almost a constant their minds, but this was the first they'd really had to face the possibility that war could also disfigure them or leave them disabled. Combat could take their lives, or it could change them forever. Maybe it would change them forever either way.

"So," Tab began, clapping his hands together in an attempt to relieve the tension, "I see we've got some guests."

"Replacements," Guarnere replied, throwing a nod back over his shoulder as his displeasure twisted his face.

"Guess I gotta pick a new bunk," was all Tab said in response to that. Posey smiled; she envied him his ability to take whatever life threw at him and run with it.

Shifty left to go back to his barracks a little while later, leaving Posey's rifle propped up against the wall beside her bunk and sending her a nod and a smile before departing. After he'd gone, Posey quickly finished her sewing.

She admired her work a moment when she'd finished and ran her fingers over the new insignia, pleased with how well she'd been able to attach it. Once she put her OD jacket back on, she gazed around at the barracks a moment, at the gathered replacements and the scattered veterans, and felt herself smile. Soon, she knew she'd wish she was back here, listening to idle chatter and waiting for dinner, just like she had when she'd been in Normandy.

She felt emotional all of a sudden and didn't altogether know why, so she excused herself and set out on a walk. She didn't realise she'd taken Teddy with her until she lifted a hand to brush through her hair and found him attached.

For some reason, the sight of him, or perhaps the sight of her blood on him, made her begin to cry.

Johnny came upon her soon after that.

"Wells?"

She hadn't realised she'd stopped walking and wondered distantly how long she'd been standing there. She wiped at her eyes quickly before turning back to Johnny, but, of course, he noticed immediately.

"What's the matter?"

Posey tried to shrug, but that made more tears form, so she drew in a breath and tried to think up an explanation. "I don't know," she said, and then let out a sobbed gasp of laughter because, actually, she did. "I don't have any parents anymore," she explained. She laughed once more when Johnny's face fell.

"I suppose I should've realised sooner," she went on, thinking out loud. "I mean, I knew, of course. But it just didn't really click. But I don't have any parents. God, I never thought this would be my life."

It was so clear that Johnny didn't know what to do with himself that it made her giggle again, though it was an incredibly sad giggle. "You don't have to do anything," she told him, and sniffled before wiping at her cheeks. "You don't have to comfort me or anything, I mean. I think I just have to... kind of... deal with this. Square it with myself, you know?"

"You don't have to do everything by yourself, Wells," Johnny replied softly. He approached in a few small steps.

Posey felt her bottom lip tremble but shook her head, forcing her back up straight and tilting her chin up. "I think I need to do this by myself," she declared. "I don't know how anyone else could help."

"Well," Johnny began, "what do you need to do?"

She shrugged, turning her eyes on the sky. "I don't know, really. Just think, I guess? I suppose it doesn't even really affect me right now. But then I think about what _does_ affect me right now and I can't work through that either because..." She gnawed on her bottom lip and searched for an explanation in the clouds. "Well, I can't die in combat because my brother - he'd just - he's already kind of falling apart and he's already lost everyone else. But I can't leave, either. And I just -" A strangled sob wrenched free of her throat before she squeezed Teddy close to her, wrapping both arms around him. "I'm just so scared _all the time_. I don't know what to do."

"Hey, Johnny! Where's -" Guarnere called out from back the way they'd come. His words faltered as Johnny turned and Posey made eye contact with him. "Wells," he finished, walking the rest of the way to meet them.

"I'm okay," she said immediately. Her voice had cracked on delivery, so she cleared her throat and tried again, louder this time, "I'm okay."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she replied, forcing a smile. She shrugged. "Nothing important, anyway. Nothing's _happened_ , that is. I guess I'm just sad."

"Wells -"

"I'm fine," she assured him, and punctuated her statement by wiping her cheeks dry once more. "I suppose everyone's about to go to dinner?" Posey could feel Johnny's eyes on her but didn't turn to look. Instead, she watched Guarnere with a forced smile and prayed he'd take the hint and drop it.

"Yeah," Guarnere replied warily. "Look, Wells, if someone said somethin' to you -"

"They didn't. Honestly. It was stupid, anyway." She sighed. "I was crying about my mum again."

"That ain't stupid."

"But it's not the most pressing matter at the present."

"Wells -" Johnny went to protest, before she cut him off by huffing loudly.

She looked to both of them in turn and asserted, "I. Am. Fine. Okay?" She squared her shoulders once more and tilted her chin back up. "Lets go to dinner, shall we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the unannounced hiatus! had a weird few days. this chapter takes us past the 100,000 word mark so if you're still reading i'm immensely grateful. and to everyone who has commented and/or left kudos: i'd die for you. all the love! <3


	46. Family

Flanked by Johnny and Guarnere, Posey returned Teddy to the barracks before following the rest of Second Platoon to the mess hall. On the way there, she tried her best to liven herself up, if not in a bid to actually elevate her mood then to prevent the others from asking questions to which she didn't have sufficient answers. At any rate, she didn't want to discuss her unfortunate familial situation any further.

As always, the mess hall was alight with activity by the time they arrived. With Johnny in front of her and Guarnere behind, Posey slotted into the line for food and contented herself with people watching for the time being; after returning from Normandy queuing up for food had been a very quick process, though the arrival of the replacements had made it a much more drawn out affair.

There was an evident divide between veterans and replacements, as there always was, which mirrored, in some ways, the divide there had initially been between the platoons back in boot camp. As of yet, relations between the two groups were icy at best despite Posey's best efforts to warm them up, but the replacements, at least, had each other. Posey smiled sadly to recall when she hadn't had anyone, then laughed quietly to herself as Johnny made a comment which indirectly reminded her that she wasn't alone anymore. Much had changed since then.

Over at their usual table, Luz was already entertaining the masses. He gesticulated wildly as he recounted some story or other, his grin curling the edges of his words. Every now and again Skip would make a comment, and then so would Lieb or Tab from the next table over, and Luz would laugh uproariously before continuing on. Posey shook her head with a laugh as she watched on fondly, the noise of the room too loud for her to hear a word of what they were saying.

Her eyes slid over to some of the gathered tables of replacements, whose moods were significantly duller. Some of them watched the veterans interact with poorly concealed longing whilst others were engaged in conversations of their own, which were much quieter and less boisterous than the veterans'. Posey noticed Heffron sitting at a table of four, seeming deep in conversation with replacements she recognised as Garcia, Hashey, and Miller. She took the opportunity to turn back to Guarnere and point him out.

"Over there," she said, pointing at Heffron before checking to make sure Guarnere was following her gesture. "Red hair, on the table of four. That's Heffron. He's from South Philly, remember I told you?"

"Yeah," Guarnere confirmed, nodding as he studied the replacement, likely sizing him up. "I'll talk to him," he promised.

Posey nodded, "Good," before Johnny tapped her elbow to let her know they were finally at the front of the queue.

As always, the mess officer slopped the food unceremoniously onto each tray before moving onto the next, and whatever it was he was serving today, Posey had no idea. Still, it was warm and it wasn't a K-Ration, so that was good enough for her - the fussy eater in her had died the moment she'd set foot in Camp Toccoa, and, for better or for worse, it didn't seem likely to return anytime soon.

Johnny led their trio over to the table Luz was still holding court at and slotted himself in on the left side of the bench, so Posey took the right, beside Luz. Guarnere sat opposite her which made her roll her eyes, protective as he had become since France, but paid it little more mind. To Luz, she said, "What story are you telling today?"

Luz laughed. "I've been fillin' in Talbert here on what he missed."

From the table beside them, Tab spoke up, "Congratulations on the promotion, Duckie."

Posey grinned. "Thank you very much." Before she could say any more, a sharp crash just behind her had her attention drawn elsewhere. When she turned she found Smokey beginning to stand, though he'd knocked one of his crutches over in the process. Posey breathed a laugh and pressed a hand to her chest where her heart was racing. She stood to retrieve it for him.

"Thanks," he said once he'd secured it back under his arm.

Posey grinned. "No worries. Scared me half to death."

Smokey laughed. "And this from a Second Platoon combat veteran. Who woulda thought?"

Posey shook her head, chuckling to herself as she watched him amble his way towards the door. She took her seat once more and began to eat before Guarnere's voice drew her attention. "What's he doin'?"

She glanced up to find Smokey standing facing the room as though preparing to give a speech. Furrowing her eyebrows, she looked to the officers gathered just beside him curiously, for generally they were the only people who delivered speeches or made announcements in the mess hall.

As soon as the thought hit her, she shot a smirk at Luz. "I think he's after your job as self-proclaimed centre of attention."

"I wish," Perconte drawled from beside Guarnere.

Luz grinned. "I'll give him his five minutes of fame but after that he's out. No one can entertain a crowd better than ole George Luz."

Calls for quiet rang out across the mess hall so Posey turned back to Smokey again, though it took a few more moments for everyone else to settle down. Men began clapping for Smokey in preparation for whatever it was he was about to do and shushed each other over the top of the noise. "Hey, Hoobler! Be quiet for the man," Skip called out, making a cutting gesture at his neck to make the aforementioned stop talking.

Posey shared a grin with Luz before quiet fell across the converted barn.

Smokey let a slow smile spread across his face before he introduced his set. "The Night of the Bayonet." He paused for dramatic effect and scanned his audience before starting, "The night was filled with dark and cold..." Another pause and the makings of a wider smile pushed at his cheeks. "When Sergeant Talbert, the story's told..."

Posey began to giggle immediately, and she wasn't alone. All across the mess hall the veterans who knew of Tab's incident in the middle of the night in Normandy - which was, likely, all of them - burst into what was almost obnoxiously loud laughter.

Posey turned her eyes on Tab, who was bent over his table and shaking his head, likely out of embarrassment, and laughed anew.

"Pulled on his poncho and headed out," Smokey went on, gaining momentum from the crowd's enthusiasm, "to check the lines dressed like a Kraut."

"Not one of his finer ideas," Posey commented upon a pause in the story. She watched as Malarkey pushed at Tab's head playfully before slipping into the seat beside him.

"Aw, Duckie, we can't all be as smart as you," Luz quipped back.

"Upon a trooper our hero came," Smokey narrated, and everyone fell back into silence directly. "Fast asleep, he called his name: Smith, oh, Smith, get up, it's time to take your turn out on the line."

Posey's eyes flitted back to Tab to find him exchanging a glance with a rather sheepish-looking Smith. She giggled and nudged Luz so he would look, and they shared a laugh before Smokey continued.

"So very weary, he cracked an eye, all red and bleary. He grabbed his rifle, he did not tarry, hearing Floyd but seeing Jerry."

"Way to go, Smithy!" someone shouted from the back of the room, earning a round of hearty laughter.

"'It's me!' cried Tab, 'Don't do it!' and yet," proceeded Smokey, "Smith charged tout suite with bayonet. He lunged, he thrust, both high and low, and skewered the boy from Kokomo."

Smith's protests at the dramatisation of the story only served to add to its comedy.

Posey clapped wildly for Smokey as he took a couple of bows before a sharp movement in her peripheral vision drew her gaze. When she followed the movement, she found Guarnere with a hand pressed to Heffron's chest, something akin to a face-off taking place between them.

"Oh for God's sake -" Posey began to protest. This was not what she'd imagined when Guarnere had said he'd talk to him.

"You Heffron?" Guarnere asked, cutting her off.

Heffron shot a glance at Posey before looking back down at Guarnere, his face impassive. "Yeah."

"Where you from?"

"Who's asking?"

Posey grinned; she already liked Heffron but his refusal to be intimidated by Guarnere of all people had him settled firmly on her list of favoured people.

"You from Philadelphia?" Guarnere persisted.

"South Philly, yeah."

"It's like he doesn't believe a word I say," Posey muttered to no one in particular.

"Understandable," Johnny commented drily.

Posey gasped and turned to find him grinning. "I'll kill you," she mimed to him, just as Guarnere turned back to the table and gestured for Heffron to sit exactly where she was sitting. "Why can't he sit next to you?" she complained half-heartedly as each of them on her side of the table moved along to make space.

She might as well have not spoken at all, for Guarnere began questioning Heffron about their realised mutual friends immediately.

"Since you weren't wounded by the enemy," Smokey declared, turning all eyes in his direction once more, "and thus didn't qualify for a Purple Heart, we've taken matters into our own hands." Posey watched curiously as he unhooked one of the medals on his chest and held it up. "Tab, this is for you."

Posey couldn't help the exclaimed "Aw!" that burst out of her any more than she could help banging her elbows on the table as she clapped for the grand display of affection.

Luz reached over and jostled Tab's shoulder. When she turned to look, the hero of the day was finally smiling.

"I could have shot the kid a dozen times!" Tab shouted above the noise of claps and cheers.

"Yeah, right," Lieb teased from opposite him.

"I just didn't think we could spare a man," Tab insisted.

"What happened anyway?" Heffron asked, looking between Guarnere and Posey in turn. "What's the Night of the Bayonet?"

"Didn't you listen to a word the man said?" Guarnere retorted in his usual mocking tone.

"I'll tell you later," Posey promised Heffron as she watched Lip come to stand where Smokey previously had. "I think Lip's making an announcement."

"Couple of announcements, men," Lip began, proving her assumption correct. "First -" When the noise level didn't quieten, he persisted, "Listen up," before going on, "First, the training exercise scheduled for 2200 has been cancelled."

Claps and cheers burst into the air immediately. Considering what had transpired mere minutes before entering the mess hall, Posey could hardly believe how much her mood - and, it seemed, her luck - had changed.

"Secondly," Lip added, and silence returned at once, "all passes are hereby revoked." The pause he made was loaded. "We're heading back to France. So, pack up all your gear. We will not be returning to England, boys."

Posey's head spun as the words repeated themselves over and over again in her head. Still, Lipton pressed on, "Anyone who has not made out a will, go to the supply office. The trucks depart for Membury at 0700."

France and wills and Membury and tomorrow. Posey's thoughts rushed at her fast. "As you were," Lip's voice cut through them. She heard him as though from another room.

True to George Luz's other self-appointed title, designated morale-raiser, it was him who broke the silence. "Well that fuckin' sucks."

Posey managed a half-hearted laugh but kept her eyes glued to the table. When the pressure of eyes on the side of her head became too much, however, she looked up.

She gasped. "John."

"What?" Johnny asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

Posey shook her head. "No, not you." Whilst it was true that the sight of Johnny had triggered the thought, he wasn't the John she was thinking of. "My brother," she explained, her eyes almost frantic as she stared back at Johnny. "I've only seen him once since we've been back."

"Your brother's an ass anyway," Johnny replied, though she could tell he didn't really mean it - really, he was trying to ease the panic in her face.

"Maybe at the moment, but it's not his fault. And he's my family." She shot a quick glance out the door. "Do you think I could make it to the hospital and back in time? I don't know when visiting hours are but I know trains from London run late."

"London? What? Where's your brother?" Perconte asked, his eyes darting between Posey and Johnny.

Posey's jaw fell open, realising her mistake, but she recovered quickly. "In a military hospital just outside of London. He's a pilot, remember? But he got wounded so he's been in hospital ever since."

"Why don't I know about any of this?" Luz questioned from beside her. Posey couldn't meet his eyes just then and mustered a shrug; if he was hurt that he didn't know about this then she couldn't imagine how he'd feel upon finding out the _real_ secret she was sitting on.

"Wells, I don't think you should go," Johnny said, cutting that line of questioning short. He was always ready and waiting for her to need him. "Trucks leave at 0700. How are you gonna explain why you're leaving?"

"Not that they'll let you go, of course," Skip put in. He'd been so uncharacteristically quiet since Lip's announcement that Posey had forgotten he was sitting there at all.

"Can't I at least try?" Posey asked, gnawing on her bottom lip. "He's my brother. He's..." Her eyes darted between those among them who didn't know just yet. She decided that she didn't care if they found out. "He's all I've got left," she said with finality, keeping her voice strong.

"When's the last train?" Guarnere wondered. Posey's eyes shot to him and must have given her away, for he grumbled, "I ain't sayin' I'm agreein'. I'm just askin'."

"The last train from London to here departs at 2311," she replied, her eyes set firmly on him now, awaiting the verdict. Whilst she thought highly of Johnny and wanted his permission, she didn't altogether need it. Guarnere, on the other hand, was not only her squad leader but her platoon leader, and his opinion held a lot more weight.

The air felt charged with electricity as all of the table's eyes turned on him, some expectant and others pleading.

Guarnere's eyes flicked from Posey to Johnny and then back again before he shrugged. "Guess we're goin' to fuckin' London."

"We're?" Posey echoed, her grin already making her eyes shine and lighting up her entire face.

Guarnere shrugged. "Well I ain't gonna fuckin' let you go alone now, am I? Can't trust you to find your way back in the dark." He looked between those gathered and leaned in close, staring them all down. "Not a fuckin' word of this leaves this table, you hear me?"

Each of them nodded. Posey beamed; in the time she'd known them, these men seemed to have done nothing but surprise her, and she'd always thought she loved and hated that habit of theirs in equal measure. Now, though, she thought her heart was about to burst out of her chest. These men were her family and she knew without a shadow of a doubt she'd do absolutely anything for them, just as, evidently, they would for her.


	47. Lake

"So what's your brother like?"

The question was met with groans all round.

"Luz, would you stop with the questions? Jesus," Johnny grumbled, resting his head against the window with a bang which must have hurt.

"What? I'm just wondering," Luz defended, and slumped back in his seat.

Posey, sat opposite him, couldn't fight her smile; whilst it was true that he'd done nothing but talk since they'd left Aldbourne, he was doing wonders to ease her nerves without even knowing it. As they pulled away from London and back into the countryside, Luz's chatter was almost as constant as the low rumble of the train beneath them and the gentle shaking of the glass on the windows.

"He's, um," Posey began, and had to clear her throat before continuing, "he's not very well right now. Obviously, because he's in hospital. But I also mean that he's not really himself. I'd thought that after I'd experienced some combat he might loosen up a bit but he hasn't, not really." At the hard stare Johnny was wearing as he watched her, she rushed to add, "He means well, though. He's lost everyone in his crew as well as a limb and all of his toes, so he's got a lot to be down about. I think he just wants me to be safe, really."

Luz nodded. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." He turned his eyes out of the window, where the sun was already setting and bathing the train compartment in a saturated orange light, before turning back to face her abruptly. "Say, -"

"Luz, you are gettin' on my last fuckin' nerve," Guarnere hissed from beside Posey. "You ain't even supposed to be here so can it with the questions, alright?"

Posey hid her smile in the collar of her ODs. As much as she didn't mind Luz's chatter, what Guarnere said was true; the only reason he was there at all was because he'd refused to stay behind. Even when he hadn't been able to wear any of them down into letting him come, he'd followed them. Posey had no idea why he was so determined to make the trip but she guessed it had something to do with making sure he wasn't being kept out of the loop anymore - he hadn't been pleased to discover he'd known nothing of Posey's visits to her wounded brother, so perhaps this was his way of ensuring that nothing of the sort could happen again.

Posey twiddled her thumbs once they had lapsed into silence once more, her mind racing a mile a minute as she considered how many rules they were breaking by doing this. Unable to help herself, she spoke up abruptly. "Do you think the others will be alright?"

"You two are just as fuckin' bad as each other," Johnny huffed, but he didn't look all that rattled.

"They'll be fine," Guarnere asserted, and his tone left no room for argument. "Long as Heffron can keep his mouth shut if one 'a the officers stops by the barracks."

Posey nodded, more to reassure herself than in response to the question. With every meter they progressed closer to Wiltshire she seemed to become increasingly conscious of how much trouble she could be in if anyone found out. Not only would the lot of them likely be court martialled - and she couldn't stand the thought of getting her friends into trouble - but if anyone found out _who_ she was going to visit, it wouldn't take very much to unwind her great spiral of lies from there. All of a sudden she had the overwhelming sense that this had been a terrible, terrible idea.

"How long's the journey usually take?" Luz asked, looking between Posey and the sunset outside of the window in turn.

No one berated him for asking the question. Posey thought the others had likely been wondering the same thing themselves.

"Around an hour, generally," she replied, grasping onto the seat underneath her tightly. "Though at this time of day it'll probably be a bit quicker - they don't tend to run so many trains during the night."

"So when we get there -"

"All of us will stay outside and Wells will go in. That's the plan. Okay, Luz?" Johnny demanded.

Luz held his hands up palms-forward in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. I was just askin'."

Conversation was sparse for the rest of the journey and, true to the plan, when they arrived at the RAF General Hospital the three men remained outside. Posey shot each of them a smile before heading straight into the building which contained Ward Number Five, walking with a purpose to minimise her chances of being stopped; whilst she didn't know for certain what visiting hours were, she was rather certain that they didn't encapsulate 2200 hours.

The hallways were eerie at night. The sound of her footsteps on the floor seemed to echo off of the walls regardless of how softly she walked. Blackout blinds prevented any moonlight from getting in through the windows at all - always a sharp reminder of all she'd experienced during the Blitz, though Posey had new memories to fill her nightmares by now - and the floor in front of her was only lit by flickering lights on the walls every few meters.

She wasn't much a fan of the hospital by day, but by night it was more unsettling than she let herself comprehend.

When she finally made it to the doors to the ward, she pushed them open as quietly as she was able. The curtains around each bed had been pulled for the night, the men they concealed either sleeping or attempting to. Posey tiptoed her way down the walkway, shooting glances back over her shoulder at the doors every few seconds. When she reached John's bed, she exhaled a silent sigh of relief.

She paused at the curtain. Now she was here, she wasn't sure what to say. What if he was sleeping? What if he was having a nightmare? What if he needed a nurse? Her worries rushed at her so fast her head spun. She pushed open the edge of the curtain before she could talk herself out of it any more than she already had.

She found an empty bed on the other side.

Posey's heart dropped and rolled across the tiles in front of her. But, like always, it carried on beating.

He'd left without her.

All of this effort, all of the risks she'd taken, even dragging her friends into her mess, and her brother had left her behind. Just like her father had. Just like her mother had, in a way. Just like people always did.

A weak sob wrenched its way out of her mouth before she clapped a hand over it to smother the noise. She was so sick of being left behind.

Posey closed the curtain once more and navigated her way back through the hallways as though in a daze. She kept as quiet as she was able, tiptoeing where she could and ducking beneath the windows on doors. Tears stung in her eyes. She held them back. If she started to sob she knew she'd give the whole game away, and she was sick of crying for a family who didn't cry for her.

When she made it back to where Johnny, Guarnere, and Luz were waiting, all she could muster was a shrug.

"What's wrong? Did you see him?" Johnny questioned immediately.

Posey's bottom lip trembled as she shook her head, slowly at first and then rapidly. "He left me," she admitted, the words riding an exhale which quickly turned into a gasp. She held back sobs by sheer force of will, continuing to shake her head in the hopes that she could keep all of her thoughts at bay. "He's gone. He left me behind."

"He _what_?"

"Wait -" Posey started, standing up straight and wiping at her eyes. "Wait a second." She turned on her heel and skirted around the side of the building, sticking to the walls and thanking God, for once in her life, for blackout blinds. When she made it to the hospital's garden, another sob left her throat. "John," she whispered.

He hadn't left her after all.

She approached him slowly, warily, trying her best not to startle him. When she came to stand behind the bench he sat on, she cleared her throat.

"I'll be back in in a minute," he grumbled, his eyes set on the lake before him. "I just needed some air."

Clearly, he thought she was a nurse or an orderly. Posey fought a smile. "I came to say goodbye."

"Posey?" He whipped around so fast she worried he was about to fall off of the bench, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging agape. Like her, he had tear tracks on his cheeks. Posey just about felt her heart shatter.

"Yeah," she murmured. She gestured with her head to the bench and he nodded, so she came to sit beside him. "I thought you left me," she admitted. She chose not to mention his tears.

Turning her eyes on the lake as well, she let out a quiet sigh. It looked like a mirror under the moonlight, or a portal to another world. The sky it reflected seemed clearer, somehow, in the water, and stiller, too. There was less chaos in whatever world was beyond. Less struggle. Less pain.

"What do you mean?" John asked, equally as quiet.

"I found your bed empty. I thought you'd been transferred to another hospital or discharged or something."

"And you thought I wouldn't tell you?"

Posey shrugged, shrinking into herself. It seemed so stupid now.

"I wouldn't do that, Posey," John said, his voice more earnest than she'd heard it in a while but just as serious as it always was. "Not to you."

"I know."

"I know I've been hard on you but you're still my family. I really wouldn't do that to you."

Posey nodded, even though he wasn't watching her. "I know."

"You said you were saying goodbye?"

Posey didn't know why it was easier to talk to him in the dark. In the ward during the day, everything seemed to be dialled up; colours were more intense, sounds more prominent, words seemed to hold more weight. Now, outside and under the veil of night, Posey felt more comfortable sitting beside him than she could remember ever having felt, even before the war.

She nodded once more, even though he still wasn't looking at her. "We're jumping back into France tomorrow. We won't be coming back to England this time." She shot a glance at his profile and offered a weak smile. "We're in it for the long haul, now."

John closed his eyes. "You'll be okay," he said, nodding to himself.

She didn't quite know what to say to that. What she came up with, after a considerable pause, was, "I'm a sharpshooter now."

"You are?" He opened his eyes and flicked them over to her, though he didn't turn his head. When he saw she'd caught him he turned them forwards again.

"I got promoted right after my last visit to see you," she informed him softly, fighting a smile. "For my work in Normandy."

"Well done," he said. He didn't look at her but she could tell that he meant it; he never said things like that.

Posey smiled. _Well done._ She knew she would keep those words close to her heart for the rest of her life. Not 'congratulations' but 'well done'. It was all she'd ever wanted to hear from him, really. She felt tears burning in her eyes but pushed them back.

"Thank you."

"Who are your friends?"

"What?"

Posey glanced behind her almost as comically fast as John had when she'd arrived and found the trio of men who'd accompanied her most certainly _not_ where she'd left them. Each of them had the decency to look sheepish, at least, where they were gathered around a tree.

"Some of the men in my platoon," she answered John without turning back around. "They were kind enough to make the journey with me to make sure I was okay."

"That's good of them."

Posey nodded and only then sat back on the bench properly. She fiddled with her hands in her lap.

"Are you going to introduce me?"

Her jaw fell open. "Uh... what?"

In her periphery, she watched John roll his eyes. "Well?"

"One of them doesn't know. About me. That I'm a girl or that I'm British. And none of them know my real name, so I think it'd probably be best if I didn't introduce you."

She was expecting a lecture on how dangerous it was to have any of them know, but he didn't bat an eye. Instead, John scoffed a laugh. "You're worried about what I'd say to them, aren't you?"

Posey coughed awkwardly into her fist. "Well, we should be getting back, I think."

John chuckled under his breath but didn't make to protest. He simply nodded and turned to look at her fully for the first time since she'd gotten there. "Look after yourself, okay?"

"I will," she assured him, feeling slightly unnerved by his sincerity. "Promise."

He watched her closely for a few moments before finally, eventually nodding. "See you," he offered.

Posey shrugged one shoulder and quirked a small smile; she knew that was as good as she was going to get and it was enough for her. "See you." She inclined her head to him and took one long, hard look at him to commit his face to memory, even largely covered by the blanket of darkness as it was, before getting to her feet and approaching Johnny, Guarnere, and Luz.

"You done?" Guarnere asked as soon as she was close enough to hear him.

She nodded, fiddling at her ODs. "Yeah. Thank you for coming."

All three of them shrugged and offered a variation of 'no problem', which made her smile.

"Don't we get to meet him?" Luz asked after a beat of silence.

Posey rolled her eyes. "Insatiable, you are," she told him, but she wore a smile that betrayed her fondness. "No, you don't get to meet him. I don't think he's in a position for that just now." Half a lie and half a truth; she really didn't think he _was_ ready for it.

All three offered a nod and Posey stepped past them to lead the way out of the hospital and back towards the train station. They'd get there with time to spare and maybe even be able to catch an earlier train. The whole ordeal hadn't taken as long as she'd been expecting - even now, she was always expecting more conversation of John than he was able to give. When she heard a hushed voice call out behind her, she halted in place.

"Don't worry, we're lookin' after her for ya!"

Posey whipped around lightning fast. "Bill!"

He realised his mistake a second too late. All eyes shot to Luz, whose own eyes flitted between Posey and Guarnere.

"Wait, what?"


	48. 2311

"What?" Guarnere asked, an attempt to cover his tracks.

"What... what?" Luz replied, his face screwing up comically.

Posey grimaced from her place just ahead of them. "We should be getting back to the train station before we get caught."

Luz turned his eyes from her back to Guarnere, scepticism written all over his face. "You said 'we're looking after her'," he said, enunciating his words slowly as though laying a hand of cards in poker which could make or break his chances of winning. "Why'd you say 'her'?"

"Uh..."

"It's an inside joke," Posey explained in one breath, her eyes wild as they flicked between Johnny and Guarnere in the search for backup. "Y'know, because I'm so... effeminate." The lie was weak even to her own ears. Johnny sighed from beside her.

"You're a girl, aren't you?" Luz asked, turning to face Posey fully. She could practically see the gears turning in his head as he pieced everything together. "The teddy bear, the sneaking out - not going to the hospital after you were shot!" Posey knew she'd lost from the sparkle in his eyes; for all he liked to mess around and play the comedian, Luz wasn't at all stupid. "You're a broad!"

"For fuck's sake, Guarnere," Johnny hissed, and turned his back on the conversation entirely. He walked a few paces in the direction of the way out before turning back, too far away to contribute to the conversation but just about close enough that he could hear it.

"Luz, if you tell anyone I'll kick your ass so hard you'll be coughin' up boot polish for weeks, alright?"

And there was Bill, always trying to be her hero.

"I could be shot for doing this, Luz," Posey told him, speaking with her real accent and her real voice. The reaction she got was immediate, though not necessarily the one she'd been expecting: his face lit up like a Christmas tree. "I'm serious!" she added, desperately dragging her smile back down again, because this _was_ serious, even if Luz generally wasn't. "I could actually be shot. You can't tell a single soul."

"You're really a broad," was all he said in response to that. He shook his head as though to clear a daze. "Duckie, you're a fuckin' broad!"

"I know!" she responded, mimicking his enthusiasm. "Now would you listen to me? No one can know. No one. Absolutely not a single person on the planet."

"Right, sure," he replied, nodding rapidly. "Otherwise I'll be coughing up boot polish, I gotcha. My lips are sealed." He mimed the action, fastening an invisible zip across his mouth before throwing away the key. "Who else knows?" He looked almost giddy with excitement.

"Luz, this ain't a fuckin' game," Bill growled, his jaw clenched tight.

"No, I know. Listen, Bill, I know. It's fine. I won't tell anyone. Alright?" Luz held his hands up in mock-surrender, just like he had on the train, and Posey had to work extra hard to wipe the smile off of her face. "So who else knows?"

Posey sighed. "Right now it's you, Bill, Johnny, Roe, and Nixon."

"Nixon?! _Captain_ Nixon?!"

"The very same."

"You told him and not me?!"

"I didn't tell him!" Posey cried indignantly, before clamping her mouth shut and looking around with wide eyes. They needed to continue this conversation elsewhere lest the lot of them get caught. She leaned in towards Luz and lowered her voice. "He worked it out and confronted me about it, of course I didn't tell him. Look, I'll explain everything when we're on the train but we need to go."

For once, Luz didn't put up an argument. Instead, when Posey turned on her heel to head back out, he did the same - and, when she waved at John one final time, she caught him do just that in her periphery, too. She chuckled under her breath and shook her head to herself.

The four of them reached the train station with a little bit of time to spare and waited paitiently for their train to arrive. None of them spoke as they did.

The sky was pitch black by now, though punctuated by stars like the remnants of a shoddily cleaned blackboard. They were lucky that it wasn't raining - it would've been impossible to cover up their excursion had they arrived back at the barracks soaking wet and dripping rainwater all over the floor.

The smell of smoke was strong in the air and so was something incredibly unpleasant, though what exactly that was was a moot point. Posey knew by now, from so long spent in the company of men, not to ask questions to which she didn't really want the answers, and she didn't bother to look around to find one.

When their train pulled up, exactly on time, which was rare for trains in wartime, they were the only people boarding. Once they were on board, they found they were also the only people in the entire compartment. Posey breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief; at least they could have this doubtless uncomfortable conversation in peace.

Luz fidgeted as the train pulled away, clearly trying to pick his moment but also not really patient enough to wait. His eyes flicked all over the place, venturing from face to face and then out of the window, then behind him and back again, until his question practically burst out of him. "What are you doin' here?"

"Well," Posey began, sitting up straighter in her seat so she could meet his eyes where he was sat opposite her, "I went to visit my brother, and -"

"Duckie!"

"Fine!" She shot a smile at Johnny beside her, who didn't look so amused, and then at Bill beside Luz, who didn't either, so she coughed awkwardly and began to explain. "I'm from London originally. I got evacuated to America during the Blitz but they're not sending evacuees back over until after the war. I was worried about my brother - a pilot for the RAF - and my mother - still in London - so I pretended to be a boy to get onto a troopship which would take me home."

"Then why are you -"

"I'm getting to it." This was the part she hated to recall. She breathed in a steadying breath before pressing on, "When I got back I found that my home had been hit in the Blitz. My mum was inside at the time. When I went to see my brother obviously I found that he's wounded - he's lost a hand and all of his toes so the RAF won't let him back in - so the only choice I had was to stay with Easy. I need money and I don't have anywhere else to go." She shrugged and avoided looking into anyone's face at all costs; she hated the sympathy she always found in them, and hated that it always made her want to cry.

"Fuck," said Luz.

Posey laughed lightly. "Yep."

A silence fell upon them. Posey thought of home. When she thought about the future, the war seemed to stretch out into the abyss. If she survived it, she realised, she wouldn't have anywhere to go. The things she'd lost during the war wouldn't suddenly come back again just because the fighting had finished. What had been done could not be undone.

"Well," Luz spoke up abruptly. Posey looked up to find him smiling a small, tentative smile she wasn't sure she'd ever seen from him before. Usually, he was all wide grins and belly laughs; now, he was all sincerity. "I'm sorry about your... situation. And I'm sorry if you thought you couldn't trust me before."

Posey shook her head, a sad little laugh leaving her lips before she could even recognise that it had been bubbling up. "I haven't really told anyone willingly. It wasn't that I didn't trust you, just that -"

"Just that you didn't trust me. It's fine. I get it." He was attempting to joke, as he always did, but there was something hurt lingering behind his eyes now that the initial shock of the realisation had worn off. "I know I got a big mouth but I know when to shut it, so don't worry about me. I won't tell."

"Luz..." Posey began, and sighed. This wasn't at all how she wanted him to find out. Never had she felt so rotten about keeping a secret for the sake of her own wellbeing, but she could see why Luz was upset. They were close - at one point, Posey had considered him her closest friend - and if she'd found out that one of her closest friends had been lying to her for the duration of their relationship, she thought she'd likely feel rather hurt too. For all he was trying to prove that he was trustworthy, she thought she'd likely have to do some work to earn his trust back, too.

"It's fine," Luz said, brushing her aside. "I get it."

"I'm sorry," she said. He nodded and turned his eyes out of the window.

It was a long journey back to Aldbourne after that, changing trains at Kings Cross and then having to walk back to the barracks. As the four of them trekked along the country lanes leading into the village, Posey listened closely to the sounds of their footsteps on cobblestones. She watched her feet walking beneath her, the steps she made as rhythmic and unrelenting as the beat of her heart. The fact that they'd be jumping back into enemy territory tomorrow seemed a million years away yet. Watching Smokey perform 'The Night of the Bayonet' for them seemed a million years in the past.

"Thank you for coming with me," she spoke into the air. Everything seemed louder at night. More earnest.

"Don't worry about it, Wells," Johnny replied. "Glad you got to see your brother again, say goodbye and all that."

"He was nice to me today," she offered quietly, smiling to herself as she remembered his words. _Well done._ That would be something to keep with her when she was back in France.

"Ain't he always?" Luz asked.

"He struggles," Posey explained, and offered up nothing else. It was purposefully ambiguous; she couldn't try to unpack for them what she didn't fully understand herself, yet. "But thank you for coming."

"You just said that."

She shrugged. "I mean it."

When they arrived back at the barracks, Posey pushed the door open, practised as she was in the art of sneaking in and out of such places. If anyone heard them come in, they didn't comment on it or even make any indication that they were awake. Heffron, however, in the bunk by the door that was opposite Posey's, sat up when they came in, perhaps to prove that he'd been keeping watch for them.

Posey offered him a small smile through the darkness and hoped it made its way to him in the starlight before heading straight over to her bunk. They'd be jumping again tomorrow. She needed to sleep.

Her eyes tracked Luz after she'd lain down, watching him sit atop his bunk and unlace his boots. She chewed on her bottom lip, praying that their friendship wasn't ruined as a result of this huge lie she'd been spinning, even if it was largely against her will.

Rolling onto her back, Posey gazed up at the ceiling for a while after that. Her thoughts seemed to both race and drag their feet behind them, fuelled by energy and devoid of it simultaneously. When she shut her eyes, she saw that lake she'd sat gazing at with John, the same one they'd dropped flowers in to say goodbye to their mother.

Never had she had to say so many goodbyes as since the war had broken out. Goodbye to her mother, goodbye to her brother, goodbye to her home, goodbye to her identity, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. War, it seemed, was good for nothing if not for making a person incredibly good at saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things with luz are a bit rocky here, but over on my tumblr i wrote a little thing for a valentine's writing challenge with luz and an entirely new oc i created just for the purpose! my tumblr is pxpeyewynn, if you're interested, and you should definitely come say hi <3 all the love!


	49. Sleep

"Aw, well would ya look at us?" Luz declared as soon as he'd jumped out of the truck. "All dressed up with nowhere to go."

Posey didn't reply, simply focused on disembarking the truck without hurting herself or anyone around her. Once she was back on solid ground, she let out a sigh. Her eyelids drooped and the eyes beneath them burned with lethargy.

"I'm goin' back to bed," Bill mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

"We haven't been dismissed yet," Posey reminded him. She couldn't help but wonder what was taking the officers so long; the jump had been cancelled and it was still dark outside, what need was there for three platoons worth of men to stand about and fill up empty roads?

"Second Platoon, on me," Compton called out as though reading her thoughts.

Posey followed after Bill, trusting him to take her where she needed to be; she was much too tired to bother looking for herself.

"There's a training exercise been scheduled for 1300 but for now you can go back to bed," Compton told them, sounding about as tired as they all felt. He offered the crowd a nod before turning to Bill, to whom he said, "I'll update you as soon as I know anything else."

Bill nodded. "Yeah, Buck, I got ya." The pair shared a nod before Compton departed and Bill turned back to Second Platoon. "You heard the man, head back to barracks."

Posey shifted her rifle in her hands and made to follow after the others before a thought halted her in place. She looked down at her gun and considered it for a moment, nodding to herself once her mind had been made up.

"Bill!" she called out, watching as he turned and furrowed his eyebrows at her through the darkness. "I'm going to go practise shooting at the rifle range. I need to get better at using the scope in the dark."

"And you gotta do it right now?" Bill demanded, walking a few paces back towards her. "Wells, ya look like you're about to drop dead."

Posey shrugged. "I don't want to feel so unprepared next time we get told we're jumping last minute, and you know it doesn't get dark until about 2300."

"How long are you gonna take?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"As long as it takes to feel confident, I suppose." She shook her head. "Look, if we get told we're jumping tomorrow I won't have time to practise unless I do it at the crack of dawn before the trucks leave. I'm already up, I might as well just do it now."

"Fine. But be back before breakfast, otherwise I'll come lookin' for ya and I won't be happy about it."

Posey grinned. "Noted. Thank you!"

"You're a pain in my ass, Wells," Bill told her as she turned on her heel.

She laughed. "Likewise!"

When she got to the rifle range it was eerily deserted. Posey had taken to spending a lot of time there now that she was working with a rifle she hadn't used in combat yet, and during the day there was generally at least one other person entering or leaving at intervals. In the dark of the morning, however, and in the wake of the cancelled jump, she found herself utterly alone. Likely, she'd have the place to herself for hours until the sun came up, which didn't tend to happen until much later in the day with the double daylight savings that Britain had in place to accommodate for power savings in wartime.

It didn't take her very long to prepare her weapon, as she'd been ready to jump with it not two hours before, but shedding her webbing seemed to be her biggest obstacle. By the time that was sorted, she found she was no longer alone. She turned to find Shifty making his way onto the range, his rifle clutched in both hands as he squinted up into the dark of the sky.

Posey smiled. "Great minds," she said, thinking of the old adage.

Shifty jumped, clearly not having expected to find anyone else there in the dark, but smiled when he saw her. "Hi, Duckie," he greeted, walking forwards to meet her. "Wasn't expectin' anyone else to be here."

Posey shrugged. "Neither was I. I wanted to get some training done in the dark before we jump again, just in case it should come in handy. I'm still getting used to the scope, you see."

Shifty nodded. "Well, if you have any questions, you know you can ask me."

"I know. Thanks, Shifty," she said.

Shifty ducked his head and mumbled that she was welcome before heading over to a target a little way down from where Posey was set up.

The pair of them stayed that way for hours, shooting at targets and changing shooting positions when either of them felt they were getting particularly achy from too long spent in a single one. Whenever they'd both find themselves changing magazines at the same time they'd speak a bit, generally Posey querying something with the scope and Shifty offering his tuppence on how to get around it, and then they'd get straight back to it.

By the time the sun was just beginning to rise, Posey found herself having to fight to keep her eyes opened. She figured that likely meant it was time to call it a day, at least until later when she could train again in the daylight.

Shifty, it seemed, had had exactly the same thought, and shot a smile over at her as the both of them got ready to leave. Wordlessly, he helped to pick up and subsequently carry some of Posey's webbing - which he'd been much smarter about, in heading back to the barracks first to leave it there as opposed to lugging it to the rifle range - to which Posey flashed a bright smile.

They walked in silence for a while, breathing in the chill of the morning air and exhaling it into the brightening sky. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, its oranges and yellows only managing to elbow the darkness of night a bit out of the way. The leaves on the trees dotted at the sides of the roads brushed against each other as they swayed, background music to the owls singing into the morning.

"This is my favourite time of day," Posey said to Shifty, keeping her eyes on the sky. "Life feels different in summer when the sun is just starting to rise and the breeze is still chilly. Reminds me of my childhood."

"It's sunsets that have me feelin' all nostalgic," Shifty admitted. Posey glanced over at him to find him gazing at the distant sunrise, too. "Sunrises here remind me of sunsets back home. They got the same colours. Reminds me of comin' back home from huntin' with dad."

Posey smiled to herself, trying to imagine the sunsets of Virginia and how the breeze might feel on sweaty skin after a day of hunting.

"Do you miss home, Shifty?" she wondered, kicking idly at a stone in her path and watching as it skated ahead of her.

"Everyday," he replied, nodding as he glanced over at her. "You?"

"Yeah," Posey mumbled quietly, chewing on her lip. "Everyday," she repeated. She paused a moment, slowing in her step as she watched the leaves of a nearby huddle of trees dance in the wind. After a few moments, she asked, "Hey, Shifty, can I ask you something?"

"Sure you can," Shifty agreed, watching her in profile. "Anythin' at all."

Posey nodded, working through clumps of thoughts on how to word her question. Eventually, she came up with, "If you found out someone you were close to had been lying to you for as long as you'd known them, even if it was to keep themselves safe, would you hate them for it?"

Only when Shifty cleared his throat after a while's contemplation did she look at him, fearing she'd find questions in his face to which she couldn't give him the answers.

"I guess it depends on what the lie is," he began, clearly choosing his words carefully as he spoke. "I don't think I could hate 'em either way, but if they had a good reason for it and they were actin' in their best interests then who am I to think ill of 'em for it?" Shifty shrugged, glancing down at his boots once before turning back to her. "It's a hard question. Why'd you ask?"

Posey chewed on her bottom lip, adjusting the webbing in her arms as she looked back at the winding road ahead of them. "Just curious," she replied quietly. "I know someone in a similar situation, is all."

They didn't speak much after that, simply enjoyed the peace and quiet of the morning where the locals were just beginning to go about their business and the paratroopers hadn't yet begun to make their usual racket. When they arrived back at the barracks, they shared a smile before Shifty handed her back her equipment and they went their separate ways.

She got all of her stuff put away and got back into bed herself just in time for Roe to roll over to face her from the bunk beside hers. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her, a silent request for her to tell him where she went.

"Rifle range," she mouthed to him, but his eyebrows only furrowed as his face screwed up in confusion. "Shooting," she tried again, still to no avail. So she sat up, took a look around the room to make sure she hadn't yet disturbed anyone, and whispered, "Rifle range," as loud as she dared above the snoring.

"Wells, shut up," Johnny deadpanned from across the room.

Posey's jaw popped open. "How did you even hear that?" Johnny didn't reply, so she huffed and laid back down. When she did, she caught the tail end of Roe's smirk before he rolled back over again.

Posey shook her head, laughing in spite of herself. "Screw you," she muttered, and grinned when she heard Roe sputter a poorly concealed laugh.

She fell asleep soon after that.

When she woke again, for the second time that day, it was to Roe gently shaking her.

"Wells, get up."

Posey wrenched her arm out of his grip and snuggled further into her blanket. "Go away," she mumbled, refusing to open her eyes.

"Wells, we gotta go get breakfast."

"I'm tired." Her voice emerged muffled from where she had her face buried into her pillow.

"Wells -"

"Go 'way."

"Get your ass up, Wells, I ain't gonna tell you again," cut in Bill.

Posey huffed and sat up, pouting all the while, before rubbing at her eyes. She'd brought this upon herself, she knew, but she was certainly paying the price for it now. Dragging herself out of bed was hard work but all she had to do was put her jump boots on, which she didn't bother to lace; she felt more tired now than she had when she'd had to wake up for the jump.

The chill in the air from earlier had subsided considerably and the day was already warm - much brighter, too, than it had been when she'd last been outside. The birds were performing their little songs and the sun was high in the sky. The smell of whatever was cooking in the mess hall - the general consensus was that it was better not to ask - wafted out into the road and reached them even as far away as they were.

"Hey, could be worse, fellas," Skip began from somewhere near the front of the group, referring to the lethargy with which they all dragged their feet behind them, "we could be in France right now with nothing but a pack of K-Rations to live off of. Now, the food here ain't great, but I'll take it over the lousy dry food they feed us in the field any day."

Posey laughed tiredly and nodded her assent, following after Roe as the group picked up the pace on their way to the mess hall.

"You should get some more sleep after breakfast," Roe addressed her, shooting her a glance over his shoulder. "Ain't good to run on so little sleep."

Posey grinned half-heartedly. "No rest for the wicked. Training session at 1300, remember?"

Roe rolled his eyes. "I meant before lunch. You got time."

She sighed, tired of the debate already. "I will, Roe. Don't worry about me."

"When you stop needin' me to, I will," he replied easily. Posey chuckled to herself as she followed him into the mess.

First Platoon were already inside and mostly seated but Third hadn't shown up yet, so the noise wasn't too bad just now. Posey thanked whoever was listening from on high that her ears could adjust gradually as a result, still sensitive as they were from all of the gunfire earlier. She then mumbled a quick thanks to the mess officer when he dumped whatever he was serving onto her tray and followed Roe to a table as though in a daze. Slumping into a chair, her eyelids drooped once more.

Roe nudged her. "Eat your food. You can sleep after."

"Yes, sir," she mumbled, and stabbed at it with her fork.

"See, I told ya you shoulda just gone to bed earlier," Bill said as he slipped into the seat on her other side. "It's your own damn fault."

"I know, I know," she batted him away. "It had to be done, though. Now let me revel in self-pity in peace."

"Don't we always?" Toye drawled, all but falling into the seat across from Bill. When Luz came to sit beside him, Posey sat up straighter. She tried desperately to catch his eye to no avail and sighed silently as she slouched back over her food again.

"Gonorrhoea, any idea when we're jumpin' next?" Perconte asked, slamming his tray down beside Luz's. "Be nice to get a fair warnin' next time, right, Duckie?"

Posey's head shot up, her eyes wide as she looked at him, but he only laughed as he stared back at her. Reluctantly, she cracked a smile; Perco may have been a wind-up merchant but she knew he'd never break a promise. Their secret late night escapade would likely go to the grave with the lot of them.

"You'll know as soon as I do, Perco, now stop botherin' me about it," Bill retorted, shovelling food into his mouth to punctuate his statement.

Posey zoned out for the rest of the conversation, taking to pushing her food around her plate and eating large mouthfuls of it every once in a while if only to save herself from having to contribute. When they all made their way back to the barracks, Luz's loud chatter with Perconte made it impossible for her to get a word in to ask him to talk. Once back, she found she could hardly be bothered to try anymore.

Resolving to pull him aside when she was in a more lucid, suitable state of mind to explain everything properly, Posey settled herself back in bed and hugged Teddy close to her. She fell into slumber praying that Luz would soon come around.


	50. Author’s Note

Just a quick update to keep you all in the loop: I’m currently taking a writing hiatus so there won’t be any updates for a little bit. I’ll be coming back, fear not, but I need some time to recharge. I’ve fallen a bit out of love with the story I’m telling and I think it shows in my writing, so taking the time to step back and find inspiration, I think, is the best course of action. But, as I say, I will come back! And it shouldn’t be too long, either. I just wanted to let you all know. 

Thank you for your support! I cherish every comment you all leave, so thank you for that! I’m still going to be active on my tumblr if you fancy shooting me a message of anything of the sort, otherwise I’ll see you soon! 

All the love! <3


	51. Bombers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all!! thank you so much for your patience with this hiatus!! life's been hectic (in the best way, worry not!) but in the midst of it all my desire to write this has returned with a vengeance. i'm not coming out of hiatus just yet, just because i'm still v busy and i want to make sure i've got rid of the last of the burnout before i do come back, but i thought i'd check in and drop a chapter :) i'm pre-writing them so that when i do come back i'll be posting everyday again. thanks again for your love and patience! hope you love!! <3

Posey had never considered herself someone who could fully appreciate the joys of a public house. Perhaps it was because she'd been with a bunch of Americans the first time she'd ever been in one, or perhaps she simply just wasn't someone who much liked to drink. Either way, in spite of this, she had to admit she'd had some rather good times in pubs since being in Aldbourne.

This was not one of those times.

Luz had been giving her the cold shoulder ever since they'd gotten back from visiting John and it didn't look as though he was planning on relenting any time soon. And whilst Posey had other friends, it was only when he was avoiding her that she could truly appreciate how much she enjoyed Luz's company. She watched from afar as he lit up the other side of the room with some story or other, his gift for impersonation making an appearance whenever he needed to use dialogue to propel his tale onwards. From this far away she couldn't discern which story it was, even squinting to try and read his lips as she was.

"He'll come around," Shifty spoke up softly as he sat down in the chair beside her. She hadn't realised he'd gotten back from the bar.

Posey offered him a small smile before watching as Luz earned a hearty roar of laughter from the men gathered around him once more. She shrugged. "Maybe." Shifty didn't know the reason Luz was avoiding her, after all.

"Say, Duckie," said Tab, sliding into the seat opposite her. "Shouldn't you be over there with your usual crowd?"

Posey rolled her eyes, though when she spoke there was nothing biting in her tone. "I'd have thought you of all people would understand the merits of seeking different company every now and again."

In response, Tab shot her a grin that she couldn't help but mirror; she'd been referring, of course, to Tab's reputation for promiscuity amongst any women he laid eyes on. He was exceedingly good at charming women into letting him go home with them, it seemed, though not so good at keeping his interest on any of them afterwards. Posey couldn't help but wonder what they all saw in him - Tab was attractive, sure, but when you'd seen him pull the same trick on every single one of your friends, how could you bring yourself to fall for it yourself?

Maybe that was just the memories of boot camp speaking, though; she could still remember Talbert with regurgitated spaghetti smeared all around his mouth and sweat covering every inch of him. He could probably remember seeing her in that state, too. And he was just _Talbert_. A great friend, yes, but also such a boy.

Her smile faltered a moment when she realised he probably thought much the same of her. The vast majority of the men likely did. Perhaps that was what had really thrown Luz through a loop, why he was avoiding her so avidly now. She was a girl who had done a decent enough job of pretending to be a boy that hardly anyone had known. Perhaps he just didn't know how to act around her now.

How would she have reacted if one of the girls at boarding school had turned around one day and told her they were a boy?

The question had to be locked away for later consideration when Tab fired back, "Oh, I understand it perfectly well. You're not one to stray from the pack though, Duckie."

Posey laughed under her breath to mask any traces of uncertainty that may have been lingering on her face. "Call it sharpshooter solidarity," she told him, and shot Shifty a wink. "I can't be hanging around with just _anyone_ anymore, now, can I?"

Tab laughed. "You two are gonna be thick as thieves now, huh?"

"Just be grateful we're in different platoons, Tab," Shifty replied. Posey laughed.

"Yeah, you two are two of the biggest company liabilities," Tab retorted drily. "Can't imagine the kinda chaos you'd cause together."

"And you don't want to, either," Posey added, joking.

A particularly loud burst of cheers from the other side of the pub had all attention turned that way. When Posey looked over, she found what must have been a drinking competition taking place between Bill and Luz.

"They're gonna be so wasted," Skinny commented, joining their table along with Chuck.

"You mean like you and Duckie that one time back at Toccoa?" Tab replied. "When you thought you could outdrink Guarnere with milk? About as wasted as that?"

Posey groaned loudly and dropped her forehead onto the table whilst Skinny scoffed. "You know, I think you're making that story up, Tab."

"Do you?" Tab taunted.

"I don't think that happened at all," Skinny went on. "Duckie?"

Posey raised her head to shake it. "Nope. I don't think it happened either."

"I guess we'll just have to get you drunk enough that you do remember," Chuck put in, almost philosophically, before taking a long draw of his beer.

Posey shared a look with Skinny and shrugged; getting drunk didn't sound half bad, now that she thought about it. Between the emotional rollercoaster that had been the visit to her brother, the almost-jump back into combat, the exhaustion of the following day, and Luz's cold shoulder, she thought that, actually, it might do her the world of good to lift the weight off of her shoulders for a little while.

So that was what she did. 

After drinking competition followed by drinking competition followed by drinking competition, not even half an hour later both Skinny and Posey were completely out of it.

"I knew you were a lightweight, Duckie, but goddamn," Lieb said around a sip of beer, laughing as he watched her bounce in place on her seat. He'd come over to join their table with More at some point or other, likely roped in by the usual cheers that came with a drinking race.

"Skinny's a bigger lightweight than I am!" Posey protested around a pout.

"You're both as bad as each other," Chuck commented, chuckling to himself.

"Chuck, what's your real name?" Posey wondered, drumming a beat onto the table and continuing to bounce up and down where she sat.

"Charles," he replied, hiding his amused smile behind his glass.

"Charles," she repeated, nodding. "You don't look like a Charles. Maybe a Charlie, though."

"You don't look like a Joe," Chuck countered.

"But no one calls me Joe."

"No one calls me Charles."

Posey considered his words before a grin spread slowly across her face. "Fair enough," she replied, then clapped her hands and turned her attention to the table at large. "Lets play a game!"

"What game?" Skinny asked, swaying where he was sitting.

Posey sighed, exasperated. "Do I have to be the mastermind behind _everything_?"

"It was your idea!"

"Well," she began evenly, considering her drink for a moment before nodding to herself, "you can think up a game whilst I go get another drink. How's that?" Before anyone could respond she threw back the last of the beer in her glass and stumbled to her feet, glass in hand, making her way towards the bar.

The pub was a blur of movement as she made her way through the chaos. Warm lighting, made brighter with blackout blinds, sprayed yellow spots across the picture, figures of khaki moving in and out of it. It was loud but somehow comforting. Maybe pubs weren't so bad after all.

Once she got to the bar, she came to stand beside someone whose figure had been too blurry to recognise from behind, but once he turned to look at her she found Luz.

"George!" she cheered, plonking her glass down so that she could clap. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

Luz's eyebrows furrowed, his eyes tracking her movements. "Wells, how much did you drink?"

Posey shrugged. "I don't know. Enough to feel happy!" As though to demonstrate her point, she spun around in a circle and ended up having to cling to the bar for support once she'd turned back to face it again. Her wide grin, all the while, never faltered, not even when Bill came up behind Luz with his eyes narrowed.

"Wells," he said.

"Bill!" she replied.

"Oh, Jesus."

"She's wasted," said Luz.

"Yeah, no shit." Bill shook his head. "Time to go back to barracks, Wells," he said, turning to face Posey entirely.

She frowned. "No."

"Wells."

"I don't wanna." She crossed her arms and pouted as though to emphasise her point.

"Wells," Luz warned, his eyes sweeping across the pub to check for eavesdroppers, "your accent."

"My accent?" Posey echoed. When she realised what he meant, her eyebrows hopped up and a hand slapped itself over her mouth. "My accent!" she squeaked.

Bill glanced behind him and huffed a sigh. "Come on, Wells. Lets go."

Posey didn't bother to lower her hand, instead choosing to speak through it. "But I don't wanna go." Her words emerged muffled and still in her normal voice and accent. Her mind raced, trying to recall how she was supposed to be speaking, but everything was just a tad too blurry for that at the present.

"You want everyone to find out?" Bill demanded.

Posey's eyebrows furrowed. "Find out what?"

"Fuckin' Christ," Luz commented, reaching across the bar to pick up her empty glass. "What the hell was in this?" he wondered, pretending to inspect it. "Whatever it was, I want some."

"About you," Bill explained, speaking across Luz. "You want everyone to know?" he asked again.

"No," Posey replied, as though that much should already have been obvious.

"Then get your ass back to barracks."

"I don't want to!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot all the while. Only now did she lower her hand, just so that she could cross her arms back over her chest. "Just let me remember how to do the voice and I'll be fine. But I am just so sick and tired of doing that stupid voice. I have no idea how anyone believes it anyway -"

"Wells!"

"Y'know, when I was getting my injections for boot camp the nurse knew the moment I opened my mouth that I'm a girl -"

"Jesus Christ," Luz commented.

"So I have no idea how I've managed to pull any of this off -"

"Get your ass outta that fuckin' door before I kick it there -"

"Stop interrupting me, Bill!"

"Wells -"

"Anyway -"

"Should I go get Johnny?" Luz asked.

"No," Bill snapped. "Wells, we're goin' back to barracks. Now."

Posey rolled her eyes. "You're not my dad, Bill." The idea amused her a moment and she let out a small laugh, and then it saddened her and she sighed quietly. "Suppose that's a good thing, really, 'cause my dad doesn't love me. He doesn't even like me. Did y'know that? I lied about it back at Toccoa, 'cause I just can't seem to stop fucking _lying_ -"

"Wells, get your ass out the door," Johnny ordered, appearing from behind Bill and wearing his signature glare.

Posey nodded. "Sir, yes, sir!" She mocked a salute and an about face before heading to the door in as straight a line as she could manage.

Once outside, she wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to ward off the chill of the night. It was dark by now, which meant they must have been in there a while because it didn't get dark until really late. They really must have been in there for hours.

A rush of warmth from behind her and the sudden spilling of light out onto the pavement alerted Posey to her company. She knew who it was without having to look. She'd been expecting them to follow her.

"Blackout blinds always make me think of the Blitz," she said, speaking to the newly illuminated floor. She watched as the rectangle of light collapsed, the door to the pub closing and thrusting them all into darkness. The blinds ensured no light slipped through. "And they're everywhere, so I think of the Blitz a lot. Did you know that?"

"Come on, Wells," Johnny said quietly. He rested a hand on her shoulder and guided her gently down the pavement in the direction of the barracks.

"I used to have nightmares about it all the time in boot camp - memories and things," she went on, kicking at stones in her path and allowing herself to be led down the street. She couldn't see Bill and George behind her but she was confident in the knowledge that they were both there. "Then they went away for a while but now they're back 'cause I can't stop thinking about my mum -" Her words cut off, faltering a moment as she imagined the German plane dropping the bomb that would land on her home, her family, her old life, her future. Everything destroyed in one direct hit, one flash of orange, one resounding bang.

She stopped and listened to the sound of her breathing mixing with the whistling of the wind between tightly packed houses. Her eyes were set on the ground before she lifted them to the sky.

"Wells -"

"Do you think it hurt?" she asked abruptly. She gazed up at the stars and imagined the underbellies of German bombers, the Heinkels and Junkers and Dorniers whose rumbling engines she still heard when she closed her eyes at night. "Do you think the bomb hit and it took her right then and there, or that she was crushed by rubble and had to lay there for hours waiting for help that never came?"

Silence followed her words. When no answer came, she looked up at Johnny and then turned to Bill and George. "Which one?" she prompted.

It was Johnny who found his voice first. "I think it would've been quick and painless. She wouldn't've felt a thing."

Posey nodded, her eyes glazed over and her eyes staring past Bill and George, now. "There one moment and gone the next," she agreed, her voice soft. "Kind of like my dad." She let the thought hit before continuing, "I wonder if he knows."

"Lets go back, huh, Wells?" Johnny asked gently, lifting a hand to place on her shoulder once more.

Posey nodded and let the hand on her shoulder lead her home.

The four of them didn't speak the rest of the way back to the barracks. Posey listened to the regular beating of their footsteps and bobbed her head along to the rhythm. Her mind was away with the fairies all the while. Thoughts of sunrises and butterflies and cool summer breezes whirled around in her head, hope that tomorrow would bring happiness. Unfounded hope, but hope all the same. What else was there to get her out of bed in the morning?

Arriving back at the barracks, Second Platoon's was deserted aside from one Eugene Roe. Posey smiled when she saw him. "Hi, Gene!"

At the chirpiness of the words and the nickname she'd used, Roe raised his eyes from the book he'd been reading - a book on something to do with being a medic, Posey could tell from the cover, though she couldn't actually read the words - and looked expectantly at the three men who'd accompanied her home.

"She's wasted," Johnny confirmed, letting go of her shoulder only once she'd sat on her bunk.

"Hey, isn't this everyone?" Posey asked, glancing between the faces staring back at her. "Our secret society! This is like a little meeting, hm?"

"'Part from Nixon," Bill drawled, at the same time as George muttered, "Except Nixon," under his breath.

"Oh yeah," Posey replied, nodding. "Except him." In a moment she was on her feet again. "I need to clean my teeth," she declared.

"You need to sleep -" Johnny began.

"I can't sleep with dirty teeth!"

"I'll go with 'er," Roe cut in, getting to his feet. "I can take it from here."

True to his word, Roe accompanied Posey to the bathrooms and waited while she brushed her teeth. When she complained of her dress uniform being itchy, he jogged back to the barracks and got her PT gear for her, knowing she tended to sleep in that. Then he waited whilst she went into one of the stalls and changed. Once she was finished, Roe led her back to the barracks and unlaced her jump boots for her so that she could get into bed.

"Thank you," Posey told him in a small voice, holding back a yawn which she lost the fight against eventually.

They didn't say anything but Posey could feel the presence of the others. Johnny, Bill, and George hadn't gone back to the pub.

After Posey had crawled under her blanket, the five of them lay in silence in the dark, each of them awake but pretending not to be. Into the quiet, Posey spoke up for what would be the final time that night as the world tilted back and forth around her. "George, I don't want you to be angry at me anymore."

A sigh punctured the stillness that followed. Eventually, George replied softly, "I ain't angry at you, Duckie."

Posey was already fast asleep.


	52. Hangover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still on hiatus but i've been writing up a storm so here's another. all the love!! <3
> 
> also, as an aside, if you like my writing and you're looking for something else to read, i have a bob fic already published and completed on my profile (it's a duology). i'm v proud of it so if you're curious i'd love if you gave it a go!! <3<3<3

Posey woke up with a banging headache and almost no recollection of the night before. It was a Saturday, thank God, which meant she didn't need to be up at the crack of dawn ready for a day full of training manoeuvres, shooting practise, and PT drills - things, incidentally, which they were all much past and only had to do for the sake of the undertrained replacements anyway. Still, even without a fully-packed schedule, she woke up whilst it was still dark. A pounding head would do that to a person, it seemed.

Posey groaned, still clinging to sleep just enough that she forgot where she was for a moment, before burying her face into her pillow. Her hands came to press down on the back of her head, pushing her face further towards the mattress. The world seemed to swing around her even when she worked to lay completely still.

She listened to the small sounds in the barracks - men rolling over, sighing in their sleep, and sometimes snoring - and tried desperately to recall what had happened the previous night to land her in such a state this morning. She remembered going to the pub but not at what point she'd ended up getting absolutely slaughtered, as she knew she must have from the monster hangover she was suffering.

She didn't know how much time had passed before the others began waking, some of them nearly as hungover as she was herself.

"Fuck," was the first word out of Skinny's mouth. It figured that he was suffering too - however it had come about, the pair of them seemed to have developed a penchant for getting absolutely wasted together.

A few men groaned and complained of a hangover before sitting up, which told Posey all she needed to know about their conditions. She herself felt like she'd run head first into a brick wall and the absolute last thing on her current to-do list was sitting up. If she'd learned anything from spending so much time with men since joining the paratroopers, however, it was that they loved melodrama.

"How you feelin', Wells?" Roe asked. She heard him get to his feet and assumed he'd kneeled down by her bunk from how his breathing had become louder. "Doin' okay?"

"If I'd slammed a door on my head a billion times last night I think I'd be in less pain," was her mumbled reply, emerging muffled through her pillow. "Does that answer the question for you?"

Roe breathed a laugh. She could imagine him shaking his head at her antics. "Fresh air'll help," he said. When he got no reply, he laughed once more. "You gotta get up some time, Wells."

"I'll get up when I don't feel like I've been dragged feet-first through the pits of hell."

"Come on," he persisted. She could hear the smile in his voice. "The fresh air'll make you feel better."

Posey considered his words a moment before shifting just enough that she could peek one eye up at him. "Promise?" she asked quietly.

"Promise," he confirmed. He nodded once encouragingly before stepping back towards his bunk to give her the space to stand. When she did, she swayed in place for a moment.

"I'm never drinking again," she vowed, not speaking to anyone in particular.

"That's bullshit and you know it," Lieb retorted from the other side of the room. By the looks of him, he'd had a little bit too much to drink the previous night, too.

"Never again," Posey insisted, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead. "It's not worth it."

She made quick work - or as quick work as she was able - of pulling her ODs on over the top of her PT gear, trying not to wonder about just how she'd managed to get changed out of her dress uniform last night without anyone realising. At this point, how her secret was still intact was as much a mystery to her as it likely was to everyone else who knew. When that was finished, she slipped her jump boots on, tucking in the laces instead of tying them, and huffed when she realised she'd have to make her bed. Weekend or otherwise, the army was the army and unmade beds just didn't do.

Making her bed had never been such a painful experience.

It took a lot longer than was likely strictly necessary but a pounding head did tend to make life more difficult. As soon as she'd finished, she collapsed back down on top of it and sighed. "I hate alcohol."

"Fresh air," Roe reminded her, rising from his place on his bunk.

"Right." Posey nodded and steeled herself to get up before George's voice cut into the conversation - thus far today, she realised, he'd been suspiciously quiet.

"Hey, Duckie, you mind if I come with ya?" He sounded somewhat apprehensive, which was entirely uncharacteristic. Posey's heart dropped, searching her mind for what she might have said to him last night. With how rocky their relationship was at the moment, the absolute last thing she needed to add to the mix was a stupid drunken ramble that had rubbed him the wrong way.

"Sure," she replied, trying her best to keep her voice even. She hobbled back to her feet and looked to Roe expectantly, who nodded and led the way outside. For the first time she found herself grateful for double daylight savings. Even relatively late into the morning as it was, by military standards at least, it was still dark outside.

The door to the barracks closed behind George and Posey waited for either him or Roe to lead the way. Roe, however, seemed to have other things on his mind.

"I'm gonna head to the med tent. Gotta set up before the replacement medic comes in for trainin'."

"Sure thing, doc," George replied immediately, sounding relieved. "We'll go on without ya."

"We will?" Posey asked without entirely meaning to, bewildered.

"Sure," George replied.

"Bye, Gene," she said, forcing a smile. Roe offered her a nod before turning and heading the opposite way. Her eyes watched him retreat with thinly veiled panic, for now she was going into this blind _and_ alone. Her mind raced trying to figure out just what she might have done last night.

George mustered a small smile before he set off walking. Posey fell into step beside him. She turned her eyes on the field to her left, desperate to make her uncertainty inconspicuous.

In the darkness it was exceedingly difficult to see anything except an abyss, the field becoming a chasm which seemed to stretch out endlessly. The silence of the morning settled upon them like a new blanket, not entirely uncomfortable but certainly not familiar. Posey had never known George to be so quiet and had never known herself to feel so unsettled around him.

When she felt she couldn't take feeling so unnerved anymore, she rushed out, "If I said something to upset you last night then I'm really sorry." The words all blended together, riding one hasty exhale, though George seemed to understand them well enough. Though out of all possible reactions that he could've given, he laughed. Laughed!

Well, that was closer to the George she knew, at least.

"You didn't say anythin' to upset me," he assured her, his tiny smile turning his words up at the edges and lightening the oppressive darkness around them.

Posey took a gamble and asked, "You're not angry at me anymore?" Her voice emerged quieter than she'd intended, perhaps the influence of the last lingering traces of wariness or perhaps because her head was still pounding. Either way, her voice sounded small and feminine. It sounded more hers than she could remember hearing it, even though she'd been speaking in her normal voice for quite a while around the lucky few who knew.

George shook his head in reply to her statement. She wasn't looking at him, instead keeping her eyes on the pavement ahead of her, but she could feel his gaze watching her in profile. "You kinda said some stuff last night -" he began.

Posey cut him off. "Oh no."

George laughed, which made her smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "The stuff you said," he went on, "it was kinda... ah, I don't know... kinda just..."

Posey decided to offer him some help to get him back on track, despite how she dreaded to find out what he was trying to say. "What was it about? What I said?"

"Your family, mostly." She looked up at him at this, her eyebrows lifting and her bottom lip immediately finding itself trapped between her teeth. Her hands fiddled at her pockets. "The Blitz and stuff..." he trailed off.

Posey didn't reply for a while, trying to let his words sink in. She had no idea how much she could have told him but tried to reassure herself that, regardless of how much it was, it couldn't have been that bad. A little soul-baring never did anyone much harm - unless, of course, you were a British girl pretending to be a boy in the American military, but that was besides the point.

Forcing a smile, Posey attempted a joke to clear the air of tension. "It must've been some sob story to make you reconsider your anger."

"I wasn't angry," George replied, shaking his head. "Well, maybe I was a little. But not really. I just -" He ran a hand down his face before digging into his pocket and drawing out a pack of cigarettes. He didn't bother to offer her one - he already knew she'd say no - and pulled one out for himself before lighting it and stuffing the pack back in his pocket. He puffed on his cigarette a few times before lowering it again, his breath lightening the air in front of him temporarily. "We're friends, right?" he asked eventually, glancing at her once before looking straight ahead again.

" _I_ think so," Posey replied, her eyebrows furrowing as she watched him, now. "Don't you?"

"It's just - I've told you everythin', right? About my life and my family and every other damn thing I could think of. And I thought you'd told me everything about you. But then you tell me that you're a girl and you're British and you've got this brother and -" He cut himself off. Posey surmised this was more for her sake than his. Perhaps he was worried about resurfacing past trauma. The thought made her want to laugh. "I didn't know how to deal with all this stuff. What to do with it, you know?"

"I'm sorry," Posey told him softly.

George shook his head. "No, I ain't mad. I just - I didn't understand, I guess. Why you did it or why you had to or any of it. It's easy to hear someone say that all this shit's happened to them and not take it all in, but the way you talked last night..."

"George, you don't need to feel sorry for me," Posey said, her sigh making the words more breathy than they were solid. "I don't know what I said but I'm okay. Really, I am. I'm dealing with it all and I'll be okay. You're allowed to be hurt that I didn't tell you."

"All I'm sayin' is," George began, stopping in place and turning to face her entirely, "I guess I get it. Well, I don't _get it_. But I get why you had to lie and why you didn't tell me. And I wanted to say that I'm sorry for how I acted when I didn't get it."

Slowly, gradually, Posey began to smile. Just like that the air around them seemed to brighten, even though the sun hadn't woken up just yet. "It's okay," she told him softly. "Are we friends again?"

George grinned. "What's your real name?"

Posey laughed, shaking her head. "What, just because I'm a woman that means you can't call me Duckie anymore?"

"I'll still call you Duckie, I just wanna know."

"My name is ultra top secret," Posey replied, lowering her voice to a whisper and leaning in close as if sharing a secret. "None of the others know, either."

"Why not?"

"Plausible deniability, mostly." She shrugged. "In case anyone ever found out, the agreement is that I wouldn't incriminate anyone. If I'm going down I'm going down alone. But also so that you can't slip up."

"You really think the army'll shoot ya if they find out?" George didn't look convinced but he must have seen Posey pale even through the darkness, for his face hardened minutely.

She mustered a stiff nod. "They've shot people for less," she offered, then brushed the thought aside. "Well, right now it doesn't make much difference. No one can find out regardless, and it's easiest just to work as if they _will_ shoot me. That way no one takes it too lightly."

George nodded and considered her words, all the while Posey did the same. They walked on in companionable silence, thinking. It was so easy to forget what the consequences of being found out might be when the same end might find her regardless. She could die with her secret intact on the battlefields of Europe or she could die because she'd dared to set foot on them in the first place. She could die trying to protect her home or because she'd tried so hard to return to it. But then again, what was home for her now?

The war, whilst declared in order to defend the concept of home, had already destroyed hers. So just what on earth was she fighting for?


End file.
